Melbourne, Australia – The Leica BOND-III instrument, a fully automated sample staining system used in the diagnosis of cancer and infectious diseases, has been awarded the prestigious Medical Design Excellence Award for its innovative design that provides results 50 percent faster than previous generation stainers while also reducing hazardous waste.
Invetech’s team worked closely with Leica’s software team and application experts to develop the Leica BOND-III. The instrument uses a unique bulk-fluid robotic mechanism and complex control software to significantly reduce protocol run times and achieve superior throughput for a fully automated immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in – situ hybridization (ISH) staining system.
The MDEA competition recognizes advances in the design of medical products that improve healthcare delivery and change traditional medical practices.
Chris Rhoades, Leica’s Global Product Manager for BOND Systems said, “Waiting for test results can be stressful for patients. By reducing this time, the Leica BOND-III instrument reduces the anxiety of patients and their families, and enables quicker access to the correct treatment for life threatening diseases.”
Diagnostic laboratories face increasing pressure to process greater numbers of patient samples within the same, or smaller budgets, and with the same staff numbers. The time savings afforded by Leica BOND-III can free up a technician’s time to perform other tasks. The decreased run times allow for additional runs to be performed each day. By enabling laboratories to meet increasing workloads using existing resources, the laboratory saves time, and ultimately, reduces cost.
The value of the improvements in efficiency offered by the Leica BOND-III instrument extends beyond pathology departments. The quicker a diagnosis is delivered, the less time patients spend in hospital, with subsequent cost savings coming from this. For hospitals, improvements in efficiency manifest as cost savings across patient management, waste management and exposure of staff to hazardous materials.
The MDEA Award will be officially presented in a ceremony at the Medical Design & Manufacturing East 2011 Conference and Exposition in New York in June. Representatives from Leica Microsystems and Invetech will be present to receive the award.
The 2011 MDEA follows the instrument’s success in the 2010 Australian International Design Awards.
In 2010, the PREVI Isola, developed by Invetech, won a Gold MDEA. The breakthrough medical instrument delivers a faster, more precise and cost-efficient way to process patient specimens. bioMérieux, a world leader in in vitro diagnostics, partnered with LBT Innovations Ltd, the technology’s developer, and Invetech, the instrument’s designer and manufacturer, to create this breakthrough technology. The previous year, an innovative robotic architecture delivers superior throughput for automated IHC and ISH staining and provides diagnosis up to 50 percent faster than previous generation stainers. The TearLab Osmolarity System, developed by Invetech, received the MDEA award for design excellence. The system is the first technology that quantitatively and objectively measures Dry Eye Disease in a doctor’s office in seconds.