Repair Agreement for US Units in Mexico and Brazil

Sonora Medical Systems (Longmont, CO, USA), a principal supplier of after-market products, services, and test equipment to the medical imaging market, has announced the signing of an exclusive supply agreement with Suncom Solucion Commercial S.A. de C.V. (Mexico City, Mexico).

The agreement calls for Sonora to convey specific proprietary knowledge and intellectual property to Suncom in order for Suncom to conduct repair maneuvers on diagnostic ultrasound transducers owned by the Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS) public healthcare network in Mexico. The IMSS currently owns approximately 10,000 ultrasound units. Sonora will support Suncom in its efforts to set up and maintain regional repair facilities for ultrasound equipment through Mexico.

George Nehme, Vice President of Suncom, noted, "This agreement represents new thinking by the government of Mexico. Historically, when our public healthcare providers had a damaged transducer, the IMSS paid for expensive replacement devices, utilized dysfunctional probes, or simply allowed the asset to go unused. Now, the IMSS has a qualified option for the repair of damaged ultrasound probes here in Mexico, which will save the people of our country a significant amount of money while improving the quality of the Mexican public healthcare system.”

In a similar development, Sonora also recently signed a partnership agreement with ATCS Comercio e Servicos de Equipo Medicos Ltds (Sao Paulo, Brazil; www.atcs.br). The agreement calls for Sonora to also pass on specific proprietary knowledge and intellectual property to ATCS in order for ATCS to perform wide-ranging repair operations on diagnostic ultrasound transducers in Brazil. ATCS is a long established Brazilian ultrasound company.

Mauro Hochman, General Manager of ATCS, remarked, "We are very pleased to be working closely with Sonora in the expansion of our ultrasound service and repair business. Brazil offers considerable opportunity to indigenous companies offering a high-quality, broad-based ultrasound field service, spare parts, and depot repair alternative and our strategic alignment with Sonora will help ATCS to differentiate itself in the market on several important levels.


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