The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice
Phase Forward Inc. had a pretty good run during the three months ended June 30, posting healthy sales and earnings increases and making a pair of acquisitions to broaden its portfolio of offerings.
The Waltham, Mass.-based clinical trial data management provider posted second-quarter sales of $52.5 million, up 29 percent compared with sales of $40.9 million during the same period last year.
Physicians Interactive buys classic mobile medical publisher Skyscape: Digital sales and health marketing company Physicians Interactive acquired mobile medical content publisher Skyscape late last week for an undisclosed sum. According to a PI press release, the deal gives its partners access to Skyscape’s more than 1 million users. Skyscape’s mobile apps and PDA programs for health practitioners compete with similar offerings from Epocrates, Thomson Reuters and many more. 
Qualcomm looks at its options for LifeComm: It’s been more than four years since Qualcomm first announced plans to help launch a healthcare-focused mobile phone service called LifeComm. Qualcomm and its (still) undisclosed partners recently decided it was time to pull the plug on LifeComm, after failing to raise additional third-party funding, an anonymous source told mobihealthnews. LifeComm is just one of many of Qualcomm’s health initiatives.
MedVentive Inc. raised nearly $5 million in an equity offering, according to a filing with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Waltham-based healthcare management software provider, which was looking to raise a total of $7.25 million, managed to drum up $4.86 million from a group of six unidentified investors.
MedVentive was founded in 1997 by the CareGroup Healthcare System, a network of 3,000 physicians, six hospitals and more than 1 million patients that includes Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Phase Forward Inc. will pay $10 million for Covance Inc.‘s Interactive Voice & Web Response Services in a deal expected to close by the end of next month.
The Waltham-based clinical trial data solutions provider also inked a multi-year marketing deal with Princeton, N.J.-based Covance to supply its InForm electronic data capture solution to Covance’s clients.
Wireless health reimbursement rate cut: After months of rumor and analysts’ speculation, Highmark CMS cut the reimbursement rate for wireless cardiac monitoring MCOT services from $1,123.07 to $754. While some analysts were anticipating a rate drop on the order of $200 for the past few months, the rate cut was almost double that. CardioNet, the only pure-play wireless health company that has gone public, is credited with creating the reimbursement codes for MCOT or wireless cardiac monitoring after receiving them in the first quarter of this year.
Brian Dolan, mobihealthnews.com
Roche tests the wireless health waters: MYLEstone Health, developer of the Glucose Buddy iPhone app, is working with Roche Diagnostics’ Accu-Chek to add its educational program to the Glucose Buddy diabetes management app. Even though the addition of Accu-Chek’s educational program to the iPhone app is a far cry from meter integration, MYLEstone co-founder Matthew Tendler told mobihealthnews, it’s a step in the right direction and will bring substantial value to iPhone users with diabetes. More
The four community hospitals and one academic center that make up the UMass Memorial Health Care system will use a suite of healthcare IT products made by Siemens for the next seven years.
The more than 1,100-bed hospital system will use the company’s Soarian healthcare information systems product lines, according to a deal the two parties inked. Specific terms of the agreement were not announced.
Brian Dolan, mobihealthnews.com
GE Healthcare and the conglomerate’s financing arm, GE Capital, launched a $100 million program aimed at accelerating adoption of its suite of electronic medical records products.
About 4,000 physicians in Maine will have access to a suite of electronic healthcare records and billing software made by Athenahealth Inc., thanks to a new alliance announced earlier in the week.
The Watertown-based electronic health care records company said it will provide its products to the Medical Network Inc. of Maine, an independent physicians’ network of 4,000 doctors, allied health providers, ancillary facilities and hospitals spanning the entire Pine Tree State.
