UNION CITY, Calif.,
Nov. 12, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Abaxis,
Inc. (Nasdaq: ABAX), a medical products company manufacturing
point-of-care blood analysis systems, today announced the release
of a new Piccolo® reagent disc panel called BioChemistry Panel
Plus. This new reagent disc will be used by healthcare
professionals in conjunction with the Piccolo Xpress™ point-of-care
analyzer. As a result of this new panel configuration, U.S.
healthcare professionals can now conduct on-site chemistry analysis
in less than 12 minutes for general inflammation and infection in
combination with comprehensive liver and kidney function
diagnostics.
The new BioChemistry Panel Plus contains the C-Reactive Protein
(CRP) assay that received 510(k) clearance in late January 2010. In addition to CRP, the
BioChemistry Panel Plus contains the following test configuration:
ALB, ALP, ALT, AMY, AST, BUN, Ca, CRE, GGT, GLU, TP, UA. This
configuration encompasses a broad spectrum of internal organ
diagnostics including liver, kidney, pancreas and metabolic
functions.
The BioChemistry Panel Plus is likely to be useful for practices
that are interested in the detection, monitoring and treatment of
diseases with inflammation or infection disorders. The new panel
may also have broad applications in the European and Asia Pacific markets, where CRP is widely used
as a standard test in general health screenings and as part of
routine clinical practice.
"The addition of the new BioChemistry Panel Plus is a testament
to our commitment to continued innovation in medical diagnostics,"
said Clint Severson, chairman and
chief executive officer of Abaxis, Inc. "We look forward to
continuing to raise the bar on diagnostic technologies that allow
physicians to better care for their patients, improve the
efficiencies of their practices and reduce the overall cost of
healthcare, while increasing individual practice
profitability."
With the Piccolo delivering lab-accurate blood chemistry results
on-site in minutes, physicians can make confident treatment
decisions while the patient is in their office, thereby increasing
the speed and quality of care while reducing the unreimbursed time
spent preparing labs and relaying patient results. The
capability to diagnose and treat in one visit can have a dramatic
impact on practice throughput. Clinics can see more patients
each day by eliminating unnecessary call-backs and follow up visits
due to standard 24-hour lab turnaround. And, by having
immediate results while they're in front of the physician, patients
can experience the real impact of their compliance or
non-compliance to treatment regimens, which can improve outcomes
and reduce hospitalizations.
About Abaxis
Abaxis develops, manufactures and markets portable blood
analysis systems for use in any veterinary or human patient-care
setting to provide clinicians with rapid blood constituent
measurements. The system consists of a compact, 5.1 kilogram
(11.2 pounds), portable analyzer and a series of single-use plastic
discs, called reagent discs that contain all the chemicals required
to perform a panel of up to 14 tests on veterinary patients and 26
tests on human patients. The system can be operated with
minimal training and performs multiple routine tests on whole
blood, serum or plasma samples. The system provides test
results in less than 12 minutes with the precision and accuracy
equivalent to a clinical laboratory analyzer.
This press release includes statements that constitute
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Reform Act").
Abaxis claims the protection of the safe-harbor for
forward-looking statements contained in the Reform Act. These
forward-looking statements are often characterized by the terms
"may," "believes," "projects," "expects," "anticipates," or words
of similar import, and do not reflect historical facts.
Specific forward-looking statements contained in this press
release or in our conference call may be affected by risks and
uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those related to the
market acceptance of the company's products and the continuing
development of its products, required United States Food and Drug
Administration clearance and other government approvals, risks
associated with manufacturing and distributing its products on a
commercial scale free of defects, risks related to the introduction
of new instruments manufactured by third parties, risks associated
with entering the human diagnostic market on a larger scale, risks
associated with liquidity concerns related to our auction rate
securities, risks related to the protection of the company's
intellectual property or claims of infringement of intellectual
property asserted by third parties, predictions related to
condition of the United States
economy, risks involved in carrying of inventory and other risks
detailed from time to time in Abaxis' periodic reports filed with
the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the
statements were made. Abaxis does not undertake and
specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking
statements.
Contact:
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Clint Severson
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Lytham Partners, LLC
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Chief Executive
Officer
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Joe Dorame, Robert Blum and Joe
Diaz
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Abaxis, Inc.
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602-889-9700
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510-675-6500
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SOURCE Abaxis, Inc.