CHICAGO– Millipore (Billerica, Massachusetts), a provider of solutions to clinical labs, among others, was on hand at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC; Washington) to show off a newly release product at the group's annual meeting and Clinical Lab Expo at McCormick Place.
At last week's meeting, Millipore reported what it called the first laboratory water purification system for the clinical diagnostic market that removes alkaline phosphatase, Mikael Cleverstam, worldwide clinical and OEM business manager, told Medical Device Daily.
“By using an Elix Clinical system with a BioPak final filter, clinical chemists and analyzer operators can obtain significantly higher levels of performance for immunoassays,” the company said. “The proliferation of bacterial species in pure water can create interferences because of bacterial ALP released.”
Millipore said that compared with standard clinical feedwater sources, the combination of the BioPark filter on an Elix Clinical system effectively removes ALP from purified water.
The company said that ALP has been identified as a “key contaminant” in clinical laboratories which interferes with clinical assays, resulting in a higher risk of “poor or inconsistent test results” leading to “increased costs” and “labor inefficiencies.”
“This ultrafiltration method stabilizes baselines and reduces the frequency of calibrations,” which in turn, the company said, is designed to increase efficiency and reduce downtime. “For the medical technologist, this decreases sanitation costs that generate more stabilized assay results.”
The BioPak filter should be replaced about every three months, Cleverstam said.
Millipore said other clinical products may soon include the BioPak filter for improved performance.
The company in mid-July completed its acquisition of Serologicals (Norcross, Georgia), a move that it said “extends Millipore's core life sciences capabilities into new high-growth market segments.” The companies' boards approved the acquisition this past spring (Medical Device Daily, April 26, 2006).
Included in the combined company's portfolio of products and services will be an “expanded stronghold” in drug discovery products and services, antibodies, cell biology reagents and stem cell research. It also will have an “incre-ased presence and process expertise in monoclonals and recombinant proteins,” Millipore said.
As a result of the acquisition, Millipore will have 5,800 employees worldwide with two primary operating divisions, Bioscience and Bioprocess, creating a $1.4 billion company focused on life science tools.
Millipore also provides solutions to laboratories operating in the area of pharmaceuticals, academia and government research laboratories.
In other news from the AACC meeting:
• Protedyne (Windsor, Connecticut), a designer of industrial automation, said that it has integrated its new Radius benchtop robotic system with Roche Diagnostics ' (Indianapolis) LightCycler 480 Real-Time PCR System to create an automated high-throughput solution for real-time polymerase chain reaction assays.
Protedyne's Radius is a new benchtop robotic system using the “principles of industrial automation” and designed to offer a high level of flexibility, reproducibility and process control for busy laboratories.
• Abbott Molecular (Des Plaines, Illinois) previewed its new automated molecular diagnostics system, the m2000, which is based on real-time PCR technology for detecting and monitoring infectious diseases. The m2000 system is pending 510(k) clearance. Abbott said it also has submitted a premarket approval application to the FDA for a viral load test for HIV-1 for use on the system.
• ARUP Laboratories (Salt Lake City), a national clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory, said it has entered into a services agreement with Mednet Services , a laboratory network and billing services information technology company in order to expand ARUP's menu of services available to regional and local hospital-affiliated laboratories in the areas of direct and network-based outreach services.