The assets and IPR of Canadian company Medical Intelligence Technologies, originator of the Columba telecare bracelet (see one of the earliest Telecare Aware items, June 2005) and its later developments the Vega GPS bracelet and Urgentys for lone workers, have been acquired by Finnish care and security system company Exrei. Exrei will be linking it to its mobile Everon system to ‘provide a method for bypassing the potential problems of 21CN for the social care alarm market’.
Mark Johnson, who formerly headed up Medical Intelligence in Europe, has joined Everon UK as Director of Business Development. He believes that Exrei is a perfect technology partner as its skills and experience are complementary.
One of the most significant aspects of this development is that the new company does not have its marketing hands tied by the exclusive distribution agreements entered into by Medical Intelligence. Read press release (PDF).
[Medical Intelligence is neither the first nor last emerging technology company to discover that there are also downsides in doing exclusive deals with big players to get into the market.]