Hospital purchasing organization Novation touted 11 deals across general radiology and molecular imaging equipment, reaffirming the value that group purchasing organizations offer to vendors and health care providers.
Irving, Texas-based Novation signed one-year contracts with GE Healthcare, Siemens AG (NYSE:SI), Philips Healthcare, Fujifilm Medical Systems and a handful of others who signed on to sell radiography and molecular imaging equipment and accessories through the bulk purchaser.
"As demonstrated by these agreements, suppliers continue to find value in the Novation relationship," VP of contract and program services Michael Vintges said in a press release. "Suppliers find that participating in our contracts provides increased brand awareness and market share through access to the members we serve."
GE Healthcare was ranked third on the MassDevice Big 100 list of the world’s largest medical device companies. Siemens came in fourth, Philips ranked eighth and Fujifilm ranked 30th.
Which top-10 company was missing from the Novation announcement?
Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT), which ranked fifth in the list and whose former CEO Bill Hawkins was selected as one of the MassDevice top 5 most innovative med-tech CEOs for 2011, hasn’t been making many GPO deals since making headlines — and pleasing Wall Street — by canceling several contracts for its cardiovascular and orthopedic products with Novation, worth an estimated $2 billion a year, in February.
A few weeks later the Fridley, Minn.-based medical device giant spiked a deal with Premier Inc. for some of its spine products, leading analysts to speculate that Medtronic might start a trend that could send ripples through the entire industry.
Yesterday Premier signed contracts with both Covidien plc (NYSE:COV) and Medline Industries Inc. for incontinence products, and announced deals with six new companies last month.
Other recent deals include St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) joining Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) to replace Medtronic as the CRM providers of choice for Upper Midwest Consolidated Services Center, Cardiovascular Systems Inc. (NSDQ:CSII) providing catheter-based artery de-clogging systems through HealthTrust Purchasing earlier this week, and St. Jude stepping into Medtronic’s vacated contract with Novation in April, to name a few.