Marconi relishes flurry of deals

Christmas came early for Marconi Medical Systems. In mid-December, the multimodality vendor completed back-to-back deals for equipment and supplies.

A distribution agreement announced Dec. 19 will extend the existing relationship between Marconi Health Care Products (HCP) and leading group purchasing organization Novation. The three-year contract, which takes effect April 1, contains two one-year renewal options. Marconi estimates the potential for sales under the new agreement at more than $100 million annually. The deal also calls for Marconi HCP to connect its information systems to and offer its products through Marketplace @ Novation.

A day earlier, on Dec. 18, Marconi made public the signing of a $10 million contract to expand the University of Utah's existing PACS. The contract will add equipment and services for the University Health Sciences Center in Salt Lake City, as well as several outlying facilities in the University of Utah Health Network. The current system, consisting of Marconi technology dating back to 1997, has about 15 diagnostic workstations, an archive, and a beta version of Marconi's Web-based distribution system. Under the new agreement, this system will be expanded over the next year to include more than 40 workstations, a full Web distribution system, and a redundant archive, which will enable migration from the centralized system presently in use to a fully distributed architecture.