Merge Healthcare has launched new anesthesia information management solutions (AIMS). This portfolio from Merge uses forms-based electronic templates, flexible software and user-friendly tools that reduce documentation time, improve data accuracy and charge capture, and allow for hospitals to make a rapid transition from paper-based systems to electronic systems that can seamlessly integrate with a patient’s electronic health record (EHR). This AIMS/PCIMS  builds on Frontiers’ renowned forms-based interface to add a new Multi-Location Pre-Op Module.

Endo Pharmaceuticals has reintroduced Valstar (valrubicin) for the treatment of carcinoma in situ (CIS) of the urinary bladder that is refractory to treatment with Bacillus-Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Valstar represents alternative for patients who have otherwise exhausted all other FDA-approved treatment alternatives, including BCG. Valstar, which is a sterile solution for intravesical instillation of valrubicin, is placed directly into the bladder through a catheter and is administered once a week for six weeks under the supervision of a physician experienced in the use of intravesical cancer chemotherapeutic agents.

Solos Endoscopy Inc has received the CE Mark for its MammoView(TM) line of surgical endoscopy instruments. This will allow the MammoView(TM) line to be sold throughout the European Economic Union (EEU). The entire Solos Endoscopy product line has already received FDA approval for sale within the US. According to a 2009 report published by Frost & Sullivan, the EEU represents $94 billion, or or 30%, of the worldwide demand for medical instruments.

GlaxoSmithKline’s Votrient is one step closer to approval in the US after an FDA advisory committee voiced unanimous support for the drug as a treatment for kidney cancer. The FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee has concluded that the benefit-to-risk profile of Votrient (pazopanib) is acceptable for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer which claims around 13,000 lives a year in the US.

Dendreon Corp said it will submit its Provenge prostate cancer drug to the US FDA by the middle of November. The company expects to commercialize the drug by the middle of next year “to the many men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer who currently have few appealing treatment options.” The company also aims to initiate a clinical trial of its Neuvenge drug that will target bladder cancer in late 2010 or early 2011.