Sonosite opens subsidiary in India

SonoSite, the world leader in hand-carried ultrasound, announced that it is opening a wholly-owned subsidiary, SonoSite India, to better serve its growing customer base and expand its presence in the Indian market. Headquartered in Gurgaon, Delhi NCR, the new subsidiary will provide sales and marketing support and provide the opportunity for SonoSite to deliver the high level after-sale service and education programs it is known for throughout its customer base.

"SonoSite has enjoyed excellent growth in the Indian market since establishing our liaison office in 2005 under the experienced leadership of Pavan Behl as country manager," said Graham Cox, SonoSite vice president, international. "Opening a direct subsidiary here further underscores our long-term commitment to our customers in India, as well as allows us to better support our distribution partners and to build on the progress already made. We can now offer the financial and practical benefits of hand-carried ultrasound to the Indian market in the same way that SonoSite products have already positively impacted clinical practice in other countries. Offering a free 5-year warranty on our latest products allows clinicians to use their budgets to provide the best equipment for their patients, without the worry of ongoing costs," he added.

"As the recognized innovator and leader in hand-carried ultrasound, SonoSite is helping clinicians deliver better patient care by bringing high performance visualization tools right to the patient bedside," Pavan Behl, country manager, SonoSite India, said. "Our products have been well received by Indian hospitals and physicians who appreciate the performance, size, ease of use and durability of SonoSite systems. Our head office in Gurgaon, and regional teams across India, look forward to continue their work with clinicians across the country to incorporate this technological advance into their practice."

SonoSite India is the company's 10th international subsidiary. Through its subsidiary and distribution network, SonoSite sells its products in over 90 countries. Approximately half of the company's revenue comes from international customers.

BioServe, DNAPrint Genomics to provide clinical patient samples tagged with genetic ancestry data

BioServe has announced the formation of strategic alliance with DNAPrint Genomics, to provide biomedical researchers with clinical DNA samples that for the first time will include genetic ancestry data for each sample. With the added dimension of ancestry information to clinical samples, medical researchers will be able to determine whether certain biological markers are artifacts of genetic ancestry or are true markers for a disease or drug response in a disease. To create the genetic ancestry data, DNAPrint Genomics will analyze and categorize BioServe's Global Repository of nearly 600,000 human biological samples using its ANCESTRYbyDNA validated genetic ancestry test.

"Our relationship with BioServe is highly synergistic. Both companies believe that any epidemiological program will be more productive with access to high quality validated clinical samples that have been effectively categorized across a validated genetic ancestry platform," said Richard Gabriel, CEO and president of DNAPrint Genomics. "By removing the question of ancestry from a clinical sample researchers can more readily evaluate which medicines will produce side effects within certain ethnic groups, and which medicines will work for the widest spectrum of a population."

"Through this partnership with DNAPrint Genomics we can provide the medical research community with the best defined clinical sample set in the world," said Dr Kevin Krenitsky, CEO of BioServe. "Additionally, we are able to uniquely support the application of our samples with services that include sample extraction and preparation, genotyping, and gene expression. Now that we are able to add the genetic ancestry component to our samples, a new layer of sample data quality and analysis can be provided that was not previously available to researchers."