3M forms marketing link with Cemax in PACS effort

Deal follows turbulence at RStar

Film company 3M is making moves to expand its line of PACS offeringsbeyond those available through its relationship with RStar. 3Mlast week announced that it had signed a joint sales and marketingagreement with PACS developer Cemax.

The deal comes only months after 3M rolled out the RStar-developedline, called 3M PACS for ICU/CCU/ER, at last year's RadiologicalSociety of North America meeting.

RStar is a for-profit spinoff of Massachusetts General Hospital.Its system is intended for high-end hospital PACS, featuring MacintoshQuadra workstations with proprietary RStar display controllers.RStar experienced rough sledding last year, however. An executivehousecleaning in March removed four executives, including presidentJames Taaffe, who developed much of the RStar hardware and software(SCAN 4/7/93).

The changes were such that 3M was compelled later in the yearto announce that it was "aggressively moving forward"with the RStar technology (SCAN 7/14/93). The scuttlebutt at lastyear's RSNA, however, was that 3M was looking for a new PACS partner.

Cemax would fit that bill perfectly. The software developerhas had success securing OEM relationships for its Perfect VisionSeries of object-oriented fully distributed PACS products. Underthe terms of the agreement with 3M, the companies will work togetherto offer combined 3M/Cemax systems. The companies will coordinatesales of 3M imaging products and Cemax's Perfect Vision Series,including the ImageServer, ClinicalView, RadView, HomeView, NetworkFilmServerand ArchiveManager products. "Cemax and 3M have a sharedvision of how to most effectively manage an image network,"said Bob Harms, 3M Medical Imaging Systems vice president. "Bycombining our resources to develop this vision, our customerswill realize greater flexibility, more practical solutions andlower cost through joint effort."

Whether that vision includes RStar is unclear, however. A 3Mnews release on the Cemax agreement did not mention the statusof the company's alliance with RStar, and 3M representatives werenot available for comment at press time.