bioMérieux's PREVI™ Isola Wins the 2010 - Medical Design Excellence Award

A world leader in in vitro diagnostics, bioMérieux announced today that its automated media streaker, PREVI™ Isola has received a 2010 Medical Design Excellence Award for contributions and advances in the design of medical products. This exclusive award recognizes products for their design and engineering features, including user-related functions that improve healthcare delivery and change traditional medical attitudes or practices. PREVI Isola was designed to revolutionize front-end media processing tasks, and it is a critical component in bioMérieux’s complete range of solutions and services for Full Microbiology Lab Automation (FMLA™): www.biomerieux-diagnostics.com/fmla

Based on an invention by Australian microbiologist John Glasson and engineer Lachlan Smith, PREVI Isola was designed to help microbiologists by automating routine agar plate inoculation.

By utilizing a patented applicator, PREVI Isola maximizes microorganism colony isolation and eliminates cross-contamination risks, standardizing plate inoculation and results with better traceability, in a fully automated approach. Able to process 180 plates per hour, the instrument saves technicians’ time and streamlines laboratory workflow.

bioMérieux worked with LBT Innovations Ltd, the technology’s developer and Invetech for automation engineering to adapt the design to meet microbiologists’ needs. Launched in 2008 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), PREVI Isola systems are now installed in laboratories in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.

“bioMérieux is proud to see PREVI Isola recognized by this prestigious award. I would like to thank our partners at LBT Innovations and Invetech and our teams at bioMérieux for making it possible for us to bring this visionary solution to our customers,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer, bioMérieux. “As the world leader in microbiology, bioMérieux is driving microbiology lab automation, with new systems and IT solutions for rapid time to results, which will result in rapid time to therapy for patients. Our goal is to transform microbiology to better serve our customers, clinicians and their patients.

Full Microbiology Lab Automation helps customers achieve substantial productivity gains by improving lab efficiency and utilization of automated systems. Focusing on patient care, the company introduced FMLA in 2008 to streamline the automation of the microbiology laboratory, from sample reception and distribution, organism identification and antimicrobial resistance analysis, to result management and interpretation.

About the Medical Design Excellence Awards

The Medical Design Excellence Awards competition (www.MDEAwards.com) is organized and presented by Canon Communications LLC (Los Angeles) and is the only awards program that exclusively recognizes contributions and advances in the design of medical products. Entries are evaluated on the basis of their design and engineering features, including innovative use of materials, user-related functions that improve healthcare delivery and change traditional medical attitudes or practices, features that provide enhanced benefits to the patient, and the ability of the product development team to overcome design and engineering challenges so that the product meets its clinical objectives.

A comprehensive review of the entries was performed by an impartial, multidisciplinary panel of third-party jurors with expertise in biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, medicine, and diagnostics.