St. Jude invests in leadless pacemaker startup | Deals roundup

St. Jude Medical Inc. (NYSE:STJ) invested in a startup developing leadless pacemakers.

The St. Paul, Minn.-based cardiac device maker entered a financing deal with Nanostim Inc. through which it intends to make staged investments based on the company’s achievement of certain development and clinical milestones, according to a statement from Nanotism.

The agreement between the two companies also gives St. Jude the exclusive option to acquire the Milpitas, Calif.-based company.

Nanostim is also backed by InterWest Partners, US Venture Partners, Emergent Medical Partners and Life Science Angels.

The company is working on MRI-compatible, "miniaturized," pacemakers which are designed to be placed inside the heart of a cardiac patient in a percutaneous, catheter-based procedure. The devices are leadless, and therefore aren’t connected to the heart muscle via wires, a modification over previous models that the company touts as major safety improvement.

"Our leadless pacemakers are designed to be less invasive, safer devices that will simplify the implantation procedure…" Nanotism CEO Drew Hoffmann said in prepared remarks. "These catheter-based devices also have the potential to drive increased market penetration in developing markets because of the greater number of trained interventional cardiologists than device implanters"

Here’s a roundup of companies announcing new distribution deals and other joint ventures.

• CellepathicRx enters agreement with medication adherence company
  Health IT startup CellepathicRx will provide the mobile platform for Adheris’ patient medication adherence program. The deal is worth noting because it’s significant for a young company like Cleveland-based CellepathicRx to receive validation of its technology from a more established company like Adheris, which works with pharmacies to help patients better follow medication instructions. Massachusetts-based Adheris’ pharmacy network includes more than 20,000 pharmacies, which accounts for approximately 45 percent of all retail prescriptions in the U.S., writes MedCity News.
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• Pressure BioSciences and KeraFAST ink e-commerce distribution deal
  Pressure BioSciences Inc. (NSDQ:PBIO) and KeraFAST LLC entered into a non-exclusive, worldwide distribution agreement covering several of the company’s new sample preparation products. These products include the recently released The SHREDDER SG3 Extraction System; the novel MicroTube, MicroCap, and PCT Shredder sample processing tubes; and proprietary kits for the preparation of samples for DNA, RNA, protein, and lipid analysis.
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• SynapDx licenses Autism diagnostics from Children’s Hospital Boston
  SynapDx Corp. obtained an exclusive world-wide license to technology from Children’s Hospital Boston to accelerate its development of blood-based tests to enable the early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders. The discoveries were developed through collaboration by Children’s researchers, Dr. Louis Kunkel and Dr. Isaac Kohane. In 2010, SynapDx also obtained rights to blood-based autism detection technologies from George Washington University.
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• Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital lands $25 million from HP
  Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) announced a planned commitment of $25 million over 10 years to support the projected expansion of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and a cutting-edge research initiative designed to enhance the safety and quality of care for critically ill patients and their families. HP’s new investment includes support for the expansion of Packard Children’s Hospital, which will add 100 beds to its Palo Alto campus and increase access to state-of-the-art treatments for local children and expectant mothers.
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• SeraCare nets another $17 million federal research-support deal
  SeraCare Life Sciences Inc. won a contract renewal, worth about $17.6 million over five years, from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, according to MassHighTech. The Milford, Mass.-based company is provider of products and services that support drug discovery and medical device development.
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• Philips and NEC partner on digital pathology
  Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG) and NEC Corp. (TSE:6701) signed an agreement under which the two companies will jointly develop and market integrated digital pathology solutions. Based around Philips’ new high-throughput pathology slide scanner and NEC’s e-Pathologist Cancer Diagnosis Assistance System, the digital pathology products developed through the contract will be designed to use digital techniques to add quantitative analysis to the qualitative information derived from the visual inspection of pathology slides, which is currently the standard procedure. They will initially be targeted to assist in the grading of breast cancer and prostate cancer.
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• MMRGlobal and Alcatel-Lucent partner on personal health record product
  MMRGlobal Inc. (OTC:MMRF) announced that it is working with Alcatel-Lucent to integrate the MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record with Alcatel-Lucent’s TeleHealth Manager product to simplify the collection and notification of vital health records. Alcatel-Lucent’s TeleHealth Manager is a remote patient monitoring service that leverages the mobile networks of service providers to improve health care.
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• ZOLL Medical wins Welsh contract for EMS monitor/defibrillators
  ZOLL Medical Corporation (NSDQ:ZOLL), a manufacturer of medical devices and related software solutions, announced that the Welsh Ambulance Services (WAST) NHS is equipping its frontline ambulances with the ZOLL E Series EMS monitor/defibrillator. Under the terms of the agreement, ZOLL plans to supply a total of 185 E Series units for distribution to the north, central and west, and southeast regions of the Welsh Service.
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• Particle Sciences and Celanese team up on drug-eluting device combinations
  Particle Sciences Inc. (PSI), a pharmaceutical CRO, and Celanese EVA Performance Polymers, a supplier of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) into pharmaceutical applications, are working together to streamline the development of drug-eluting devices. Building on years of collaboration, Particle Sciences and Celanese EVA Performance Polymers are working to provide Particle Sciences with preferred access to VitalDose EVA polymer in early stage projects.
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