Atairgin Teams With UCI
HEALTHCARE
by Vita Reed
Atairgin Technologies Inc., an Irvine-based company targeting women’s health issues, is using an internship program to help develop a system for the early detection of ovarian cancer and breast cancer. Research on the system is being conducted by a combination of experienced scientists and students from the University of California, Irvine,including two from an internship program designed to increase collaboration between the university, OC businesses and the University Research Park. The company uses a technology platform based on measuring lipids, or fatty acids, in a patient’s blood stream.
Atairgin is the sole medical device company participating in Student Achievement Guided by Experience, according to Ronalee Bayani, the internship program’s director. Launched three years ago, the internship program is designed to offer disadvantaged UCI students immediate access to hands-on work experience and is funded by participating companies.
“We want to make it good for the businesses. We want to give them good workers,” Bayani said. Specifically, UCI does human resource-type activities for businesses that participate, she said, including screening interns. Program interns are required to maintain a 3.0 average while participating; they work full-time in the summer and part-time during the school year.
UCI students Que Nguyen and Jemie Sae Koo are assigned to Atairgin, Bayani said.
“Que’s in the lab, running experiments. Jemie is on the marketing side,” Bayani said.
Both interns, she added, have taken on more of their own projects as they become more experienced within the company.
Other companies that work with Student Achievement Guided by Experience include Irvine-based Broadcom Corp., Bank of America Corp., Merrill Lynch & Co., Orange County Teachers’ Federal Credit Union, Lake Forest-based Western Digital Corp. and Ford Motor Co.
Beckman Boosts Contracting
Beckman Coulter Inc., the Fullerton-based biomedical testing company, said it signed 14 integrated health network agreements in the fourth quarter.
The deals are valued at approximately $103.5 million, and could generate up to $196.5 million in revenue in the next five years.
Under the terms of the contracts, Beckman will be the sole-source supplier of diagnostic laboratory instrument systems, consumables and services. Beckman officials said several new instrument systems and products launched last year were a large factor in securing the deals. These included the Access AccuTnI cardiac test and the Coulter LH 700 series high-volume hematology platform.
The top contracts, in terms of dollar value, were with Promina Health System of Atlanta, $23 million; Lake Erie Health Alliance of Toledo, Ohio, $17 million; and Oakwood Hospital of Dearborn, Mich., $10 million.
Additionally, Beckman signed deals valued at $8 million each with the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Care in Boston; DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Meridian Health System in Wall, N.J. Those larger contracts covered most of Beckman’s diagnostics business, including automation, chemistry, immunodiagnostics, hematology, hemostasis and flow cytometry.
FDA Gives Cardiac Science Nod
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently granted Cardiac Science Inc., Irvine, clearance to market a “new generation” version of its Powerheart automated external defibrillator. Cardiac Science’s machine incorporates a new technology intended to improve Powerheart’s accuracy in the detection and treatment of patients with abnormal, life-threatening heart rhythms.
“Our intent in developing this new generation device was to make the use of (a defibrillator) as easy and unimposing as possible for first responders or good Samaritans who are already facing the stress and urgency of having to attempt to save the life of a stricken co-worker, customer, loved one or stranger suffering a massive heart attack,” said Raymond Cohen, Cardiac Science’s chief executive, in a release.
Additionally, Cohen pointed out that the market for public access defibrillation was growing based on both public awareness and legislative action relating to cardiac arrest. Frost and Sullivan, a Mountain View-based marketing consulting firm that follows the medical device industry, has projected that the automated external defibrillation market could reach $650 million by 2006.
Separately, Cardiac Science said Maimonides Medical Center of Brooklyn, N.Y., experienced improved outcomes in hospitalized patients who suffered sudden cardiac arrest since it deployed 104 of Cardiac Science’s Powerheart defibrillators in its cardiology wards last August.
Bits and Pieces:
The American Cancer Society’s Orange County region said it was collaborating on a campaign with the Chinese Community Cancer Coalition that would emphasize early detection messages, programs and services. Coalition members include the University of California, Irvine’s Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Visiting Nurses Association and the Asian American Senior Citizens Service Center Newport Orthopaedic Surgery Medical Group and South Coast Orthopedics merged to form Newport Musculoskeletal Institute, a medical practice with offices in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Irvine with 12 physicians and a staff of 75 Ian Wilmut, a British scientist who led the research team that created Dolly, a lamb which was the first cloned mammal, is speaking at the University of California, Irvine, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Bren Events Center. Wilmut’s lecture is titled “To Clone or Not to Clone.”
