PACS product helps Agfa Healthcare stabilize 3Q results

Agfa Corp. is reporting that its Healthcare business group achieved net sales of approximately $1.2 billion in the first nine months of 2003.

 While the amount is 5 percent less than the same period of 2002, Agfa says it is equivalent to an increase of 5 percent at stable exchange rates.

 Sales of analog and digital imaging systems grew "moderately," the company added, while sales of informatics, Agfa's picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) and specialized software for hospitals, such as radiology information systems (RIS), continued to "rise substantially."

 Agfa recently was awarded two new, three-year, multi-source contracts by group purchasing organization (GPO) Premier Purchasing Partners L.P. to provide film and medical imagers to the GPO's 1,500 member hospitals.

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