16 November 2010, Singapore - CordLife, homegrown umbilical cord blood banking leader announced the launch of CordLife Academy, the first corporate learning and strategic talent management programme in Asia dedicated to providing technical and business education to the adult stem cell banking and life sciences industry.

Co‐funded by SPRING Singapore, this landmark programme will focus on developing curriculum centered in the areas of technology and know‐how development, commercialization, business management processes and laboratory operations. CordLife plans to invest $1 million over two years in this corporate learning division to serve the continuing learning needs of over 300 staff across the Group’s global business. With this new division, CordLife aims to be the benchmark for developing talents in the industry. Eventually, the company hopes to make this life sciences‐centric curriculum available to working professionals outside of the company. The curriculum will consist of training modules including customized courses drawn from the company’s best practices and case studies as well as carefully hand‐picked courses offered by top academic institutions such as INSEAD, Nanyang Business School and HAAS Berkeley Business School. In addition to formal training, the Cordlife Academy will also be implementing a novel set of talent development and management tools derived from a three year research study of top performing technology‐based companies around the world.

"Having the right people with the right ability, behavior and capability is the life blood of any successful company. The launch of CordLife Academy marks a major milestone for the industry and clearly demonstrates CordLife’s commitment to that vision. Through this programme, we will provide a highly relevant and adaptive mechanism to help our employees grow professionally and in strengthening our position as the leading cord blood banking company in Asia", said Dr Steven Fang, Group CEO of CordLife Group.

 

29 November 2010, Singapore – BioMers Pte Ltd, a spin-off company from the National University of Singapore, has today announced the launch of its flagship product – the SimpliClear™ Full braces. This is a completely translucent braces system that is customised for individual patients to efficiently and effectively correct the misalignment of teeth. SimpliClear™ Full braces are unique, as they are the only virtually invisible braces that can be used to treat a wide range of orthodontic cases from simple to complex cases. Previously, patients with severe misalignment of teeth did not have an alternative, other than to be treated with unsightly metal braces.

SimpliClearâ„¢ Full braces are unique because:

• The SimpliClear™ Full braces are able to correct a full range of orthodontic treatments, from mild to severe cases. This is because the SimpliClear™ braces solution is based on the same principles as metal braces, a proven treatment procedure.

• The translucency of the material makes SimpliClear™ braces practically invisible. This avoids the problem of unsightly metal braces. Only SimpliClear™ has clear archwires within the orthodontic market

• The SimpliClear™ Full braces are fully customized for individual patients. Using the teeth model of the patient as a basis and the treatment objectives of the orthodontist, the braces system is designed and fabricated to provide efficient and effective treatment for the patient.

• The uniqueness of SimpliClear’s™ polymer composite means that they have similar mechanical properties to conventional metallic braces, with the added advantage of bio-compatibility and non-allergenic properties. This polymer composite is used to create the strong archwires, which provide the forces to move teeth effectively.

The target audience for SimpliClearâ„¢ Full braces include those that are concerned with the unsightly nature of metallic braces and unique cases where individuals cannot use metallic braces due to allergies or other reasons.

“Earlier this year, we launched SimpliClear™ Express, which was suitable for limited cases, such as orthodontic relapses or mild misalignments involving the front anterior teeth. Now we are launching SimpliClear™ Full, which is the only translucent orthodontic system in the world that can treat the full range of teeth misalignments. We are seeing much excitement from the orthodontic community with the SimpliClearTM Full solution,” said Dr Mervyn Fathianathan, CEO BioMers. In addition to SimpliClear™ Full and SimpliClear™ Express, BioMers’ other product includes ASTICS retainers.

Having launched SimpliClear™ Full in Singapore, BioMers plan to bring the product to Thailand, Hong Kong, Europe and the U.S. They have already trained and certified orthodontists in Thailand, Hong Kong and the U.S. to be providers of SimpliClear™ Full. Another group of orthodontists in Europe will be certified in December. By end 2011, BioMers targets to have treated some 2,000 patients with the SimpliClear™ Full solution. SimpliClear™ is compliant with regulatory requirements set out by the U.S. FDA, Health Canada, European Medical Device Directive, Korean FDA and Australia’s TGA.

 

30 November 2010, Slidell Louisiana and Norcross Georgia - Barely a month after announcing medical product distributor KOL Bio-Medical Instruments as a distributor for its new babyLance™ infant heel incision device, MediPurpose® today announced KOL’s first sale of babyLance™ to Slidell Memorial Hospital.

Last month, a KOL sales representative was visiting Slidell’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to provide in-service for an unrelated medical product. But after a chance opportunity to demonstrate the babyLance™ to the NICU manager, an on-the-spot agreement was reached for an order of the babyLance™ Preemie (BLP) infant heel incision device.

Although delighted to learn of the NICU manager’s swift satisfaction with babyLance™, MediPurpose® President and COO Randy Prather was not surprised with how quickly neonatal caregivers embrace the infant heel incision device.

“After nearly 18-months of intense medical device research and development for this unique neonatal heel stick, when we launched babyLance™ last August, we were quite confident that our heel incision device was going to be very well accepted,” said Prather. Valued for its ease of use, the babyLance™ can also be recognized as one of the safest heel incision devices in the world, said Prather. Earlier this month, MediPurpose received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market the babyLance™ infant heel incision device with sharps prevention indications—the first and only neonatal heel stick to receive this clearance.

 

On August 26, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued health notifications stating that lancing devices should never be used on more than one patient because of the risk of transmitting bloodborne pathogens.

 

babyLanceâ„¢ is a single-use heel incision device utilized to obtain a blood sample from the heel of newborn (babyLanceâ„¢ BLN) and preemie (babyLanceâ„¢ BLP) infants. It has four integrated components that were crucial for its 510(k) with sharps prevention indications clearance:

·       A locking mechanism to prevent accidental activation of the device.

·       A housing that conceals the blade before and after the device is used.

·       An internal spring that automatically retracts the blade after use.

·       A stop feature that disables the device after a single use.