Abbott’s point of care business negotiated exclusive rights to distribute Abaxis’ Piccolo Xpress® portable blood chemistry analyzer and full range of one-time use reagent discs for human health indications in the U.S. and China (including Hong Kong). Abaxis retains the rights to distribute the products to its current client, Catapult Health, and to other specified segments including pharmacy and retail store clinics, CROs, shopping malls, and cruise ship lines.
“This agreement with Abbott dramatically expands our research across the broad spectrum of healthcare institutions and medical practitioners throughout the U.S. and provides the opportunity to enter the China market,” states Clint Severson, chairman and CEO at Abaxis. “We believe this agreement validates the technology of our innovative products to produce lab-accurate comprehensive test results in minutes, reduce medical expenses, and improve patient outcomes.”
Abaxis’ flagship Piccolo Xpress is a compact, fully automated portable clinical chemistry system designed for on-site patient testing of whole blood, serum, or plasma. The sample is added directly to a single-use plastic disc that contains the liquid diluent and dry reagents, and the disc is simply placed in the analyzer, where centrifugal and capillary forces mix the reagents and samples. The process of reaction, analysis, and results generation takes about 12 minutes. The Piccolo Xpress can carry out up to 14 individual tests on human samples, including CLIA-waived lipids, liver enzymes, and glucose monitoring.