A Minneapolis company has inked a marketing and distribution agreement with a vascular imaging company that aims to help clinicians see veins much more clearly.
Publicly held Vascular Solutions (NASDAQ:VASC) said that the three-year marketing agreement with VueTek Scientific LLC that runs through Dec. 31, 2015 will put its Veinsite vascular imaging system in the hands of doctors in the U.S. and 20 other nations. The product, cleared in February by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, appears to be one of a kind.
“There are a variety of vein illumination technologies on the market, but only Veinsite offers completely hands-free and portable operation, making it ideally suited for physicians performing such procedures as sclerotherapy and phlebectomy,” said Howard Root, chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions, in a news release.
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In an interview, Vice President Phil Nalbone declined to provide financial details of the transaction, but he did acknowledge that the company plans to announce more marketing and distribution agreements in the future. That’s because there are a lot of innovative products out there, but the smaller companies don’t have the reach of more established companies.
“What we bring to the table is a large direct, U.S. sales force,” Nalbone said.
The decision to cement an agreement with VueTek was prompted largely by the market reaction to a catheter reprocessing service that the company launched with another partner, Northeast Scientific, in January. Through that program, Northeast Scientific reprocesses a Covidien-made catheter — the ClosureFAST catheter — to be used for a second time.
“It significantly reduces the cost-per-procedure,” Nalbone said.
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That new program has garnered about 230 customers, Nalbone estimated.
“About 66 percent of the accounts are new customers of Vascular Solutions,” Nalbone said. “This expands our footprint in the vein market.”
Now, Vascular Solutions hopes to sell its own products to this group of new customers.
Vascular Solutions, which is reporting its second-quarter results Tuesday, had revenue of $23.8 million in the quarter ended March 31, up from $21.4 million in the comparable, year-ago period. Profits increased to $1.91 million, or 12 cents per diluted share in the first quarter, up from $1.72 million or 10 cents per diluted share.
