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Solstice Medical Forms Strategic Alliance With RFID Provider Northern Apex

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (May 24, 2006)—As a significant milestone in the rapid emergence of Solstice Medical, LLC, CEO Daniel Sands has announced the signing of a strategic radio frequency identification (RFID) development, manufacturing and integration agreement with Fort Wayne-based Northern Apex-RFID.

“Northern Apex-RFID is recognized and respected as an innovator and leading solutions integrator in RFID technology,” said Sands. “We are very excited about the synergies and market value that will result from the combined strengths of our two companies and their ability to support our total asset lifecycle management system, called Dock-to-DocTM.”

“Over the past nine years, Northern Apex-RFID has developed a reputation for innovation, customer focus and value through the provision of RFID integrated components, engineered solutions and complete RFID turnkey systems,” stated Michael Gigli, operations and sales manager for Northern Apex-RFID. “The relationship with Solstice Medical allows our core competencies to be further leveraged in high technology medical applications.”

In the estimated $26 billion global orthopedic device market (2005), there was approximately $10 billion of consigned and loaned assets deployed in distributions points and hospitals,” added Sands. “Along with the single use implants, about half of these assets are reusable surgical instruments that have useful lives in excess of five years. Tracking, scheduling and maintaining these high cost assets within the pre- and post-operative supply chain over that period of time is a challenge. The solution to date has simply been to deploy more assets that consume operating capital and ultimately increases the cost of healthcare.  This industry dynamic and device manufacturers’ efforts to reduce costs have created a demand for improved product management systems that can be realized by Solstice Medical’s RFID technology. We believe our two companies are well positioned to help fill these voids in the marketplace.”

“By combining the extensive medical device and radio frequency (RF) design experience of Solstice Medical with Northern Apex’s RFID development and integration expertise, Solstice Medical is now able to offer proven RFID performance in adverse conditions common in the medical device manufacturing and hospital environments,” said Michael Westrick, chief technology officer with Solstice Medical. “RFID performance is affected by water, heat, metal and other RF emitting devices. Our asset management products are designed to withstand and outperform competitors’ products in these types of settings.”

About Solstice Medical
Solstice Medical is a pioneer in medical device asset lifecycle management utilizing embedded RFID technology. The company provides RFID engineering and integration services, software development and RFID products from the earliest points of medical device manufacturing through point-of-care in hospitals. Solstice Medical’s customer driven and high technology solutions provide surgical device manufacturers and hospitals the ability to remotely track valuable mobile surgical assets in real time. Scalable systems improve customers’ reusable and disposable inventory utilization, thus improving efficiency through total supply chain integration. More information on Solstice Medical, LLC, is available at www.solsticemedical.com.

About Northern Apex
Northern Apex-RFID is an industry leader in cost effective, quick-turn RFID integrated solutions. Since 1998, the company has deployed read only, read/write, active and passive RFID solutions based on smart chip technology. These include pharmaceutical item and multi-pack verification, container data management, asset tracking, maintenance and calibration, product authenticity, critical process control, security, event timing and manufacturing process integration. Additional information on Northern Apex-RFID can be found at www.northernapex-rfid.com.