McGaw Inc. Signs $9-Million Contract With Hospital Chain : Health care: Agreement with Dallas-based EPIC comes a week after renewal of $129-million deal to supply VA hospitals.

McGaw Inc. has inked a four-year deal, valued at about $9 million, to provide intravenous solutions to a Dallas-based operator of 36 hospitals, the company announced Wednesday.

The contract with EPIC Healthcare Group Inc. comes a week after the Department of Veterans Affairs gave McGaw approval to be the sole supplier of intravenous solutions to its VA hospitals for the next five years.

McGaw, based in Irvine, won a renewal on a $129-million contract in May with the VA--the company’s largest customer--but the contract was put on hold temporarily under protest by competitor Baxter Healthcare Corp. of Illinois.

Baxter complained that McGaw’s bid was “materially and mathematically unbalanced” because McGaw charged the VA on a decreasing scale--charging more in the first years of the contract than Baxter, but underbidding Baxter over the life of the contract.

Baxter’s bid was $132 million, or $26.4 million per year. McGaw’s bid called for charging the VA $29.9 million in the first year, $28.5 million for the second year, $26.5 million for the third year, $23.8 million for the fourth year, and $20.7 million for the fifth year for a total of $129.4 million.

In the Dallas deal, EPIC officials cited McGaw’s non-polluting intravenous bags as a major reason for selecting McGaw as its supplier. The environmentally friendly bags, which burn cleanly in medical incinerators, were praised by then-vice presidential candidate Al Gore during a campaign stump through Orange County in August, 1992.

“When we make purchasing decisions, we consider the total cost of acquiring, using and disposing of the product,” EPIC spokesman Gary Gilliam said in a statement Wednesday. “We also consider the effect of our decisions on the communities served by EPIC hospitals.”