Briefs

Home infusion provider emerges from bankruptcy DENVER - Home infusion provider Coram Healthcare announced that it had emerged from bankruptcy effective Dec. 1. The company had taken several stabs at reorganization since first filing for Chapter 11 in 2000. “The path to our reorganization has been a long and sometimes arduous one, but Coram's management and employees never lost sight of their mission along the way,” said Allen J. Marabito, principal executive officer of Coram Healthcare, in a company statement. Coram is a specialized home infusion provider with more than 70 branches throughout the United States and Canada. Couple gives $44 million to U-M for diabetes study ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A research facility at the University of Michigan is working to find a cure for Type 1 diabetes thanks to a $44-million gift from a former Michigan couple. The donation from Bill and Dee Brehm of McLean, Va., is the largest gift ever to the U-M health system. The money will be used for, among other things, the construction of a new $30-million Center for Type 1 Diabetes Research and the creation of a virtual Michigan Comprehensive Diabetes Center to coordinate all research activity at U-M in Type 1 diabetes and the hiring of eight new faculty members to work on the research. Research will likely focus on inslet transplants and on the minority of diabetics who have not had diabetic complications, like Dee Brehm, who is one of only 70 people in the country to have lived more than 50 years without complications from the disease. Crescent Healthcare restructures ANAHEIM, Calif. - Investment firm Frontenac Co. recently completed a recapitalization of home infusion provider Crescent Healthcare. Terms of the recapitalization, a restructuring through which investors acquired a majority interest in the company, were not disclosed. Bob Funari, former CEO of Syncor International and formerly senior executive of McKesson Drug Company and Baxter International, has been appointed CEO. Dr. Sohail Masood, founder and former CEO of Crescent, will continue to serve as chief clinical officer.