Alsius Corporation Awarded Three-Year GPO Agreement With Novation
"We are pleased that our intravascular temperature management solution was chosen by Novation," said Bill Worthen, president and chief executive officer of Alsius. "This is the sixth contract that we have been awarded by a major hospital group purchasing organization in the U.S., further validating the adoption and growing industry support for our innovative technology."
Novation is a leading group purchasing organization (GPO) representing over $33.1B in annual U.S. healthcare spending. Included is the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), an alliance of 103 academic medical centers and 191 of their affiliated hospitals representing approximately 90 percent of the nation's non-profit academic medical centers.
The agreement will be effective on January 1, 2009.
"The agreement with Alsius represents an excellent example of how Novation seeks to ensure that we're meeting the needs of our members by providing emerging technologies that offer the highest quality of care and demonstrate clinical acceptability," said Cathy Denning, Senior Director - Surgical Contracting of Novation.
About Alsius IVTM(TM)
Alsius IVTM consists of the CoolGard 3000® and Thermogard XP® systems and a family of single-use catheters, including the Cool Line®, Icy®, Fortius®, Solex(TM) and Quattro(TM) catheters. The catheters are inserted into a major vein through a patient's neck or groin, and circulate cool or warm saline in a closed-loop through balloons that surround the catheters. This approach decreases or increases core temperature from the inside of the body out toward the exterior, allowing for significantly more rapid control of a patient's core body temperature, with greater efficiency and precision, compared to conventional external temperature management products such as cooling and warming blankets and ice packs.
About Alsius Corporation
Alsius, headquartered in Irvine, Calif., is a medical device company that develops, manufactures and sells proprietary products to precisely control patient temperature in hospital critical care settings. Controlling body temperature, through cooling and warming, is becoming the standard of care for patients in select critical conditions and those undergoing a variety of surgical procedures. Alsius markets a comprehensive suite of catheter-based intravascular temperature management products that address the need for effective, accurate, easy-to-use and cost-effective control of body temperature in critical care patients. For more information, visit http://www.alsius.com.
About Novation
Founded in 1998, Novation is the leading health care contracting services company for more than 2,500 members of VHA Inc. and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), two national health care alliances and nearly 13,000 members of Provista, LLC. Novation offers its customers contract development and management, supply chain data and measurement, and industry knowledge and advocacy. Based in Irving, Texas, Novation develops and manages competitive contracts with more than 500 suppliers. VHA, UHC and Provista members used Novation contracts to purchase more than $33.1 billion in 2007. For more information on Novation, visit http://www.novationco.com.
Safe Harbor
This press release may contain statements regarding plans and expectations for the future that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking. Such forward looking statements, including prospects for sales under the GPO agreement discussed in this release, are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Alsius' management, and are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The information set forth herein should be read in light of such risks. Additional information concerning such risks and uncertainties are contained in Alsius' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be accessed electronically on the Securities and Exchange Commission website at http://www.sec.gov.
Source: Alsius Corporation