Card Guard AG (SWX: CARDG) announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary LifeWatch has entered into an exclusive long-term agreement with Guidant Corporation (NYSE: GDT), whereby LifeWatch will perform monitoring services for patients implanted with Guidant ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) devices.
LifeWatch will provide its services on a 24 hour a day, seven days aweek 365 days a year basis.
Patients and physicians will enroll on Guidant’s Latitude information system and LifeWatch will perform the remote follow-up monitoring services for those patients. Monitoring will include devices used for the treatment of bradycardia (slow or irregular heart rhythms) and tachycardia (abnormally fast heart rhythms).
No value was disclosed, but Card Guard stated that LifeWatch expects first service revenues from this collaboration in the second half year of 2006.
Guidant had annual sales of over $2.4 billion in implantable defibrillator systems and pacemaker systems worldwide during 2004.
On October 29 2001, Card Guard completed the process of becoming a Switzerland based company. Card Guard is now headquartered in Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland, with subsidiaries in the US, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, the UK, Switzerland and Israel. Card Guard Scientific Survival, the fully owned Israeli subsidiary of the company, is located at the Rabin Science Park in Rehovot.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on Monday, October 10, 2005