Lipid Panel Development for Afinion Point-of-Care System

Axis-Shield plc, the international in vitro diagnostics company, today announces that it is developing a full lipid test panel for its award-winning Afinion™ Point-of-Care System, as an aid to cardiovascular risk assessment. The test panel will measure HDL and LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides, as well as total cholesterol and is expected to be launched in 2011.

Current Afinion™ tests include HbA1c (for monitoring effectiveness of glucose control in diabetics) and CRP (to differentiate between bacterial and viral infections) and a test for prothrombin time to measure anticoagulant status is scheduled to be launched next year. The Company has placed over 2500 Afinion™ systems since launch and the ease-of-use and accuracy of Afinion™ have ensured a positive customer response. The addition of a lipid panel to the instrument menu will further increase system appeal and advantages over competitors. The global market for lipid testing is now in excess of $1 billion per annum with almost half of this figure from Physicians’ Office Laboratory testing, where Afinion™ is particularly suited. The American Heart Association recommends that all adults are assessed for lipid levels at least every five years, increasing to yearly for the nation’s 24 million diabetics. In the US the National Cholesterol Education programme has estimated that around 40% of results from total cholesterol only measurement can be clinically misleading and thus it is important to offer the whole panel to ensure better patient assessment.

Commenting, Ian Gilham, CEO of Axis-Shield, said: “The lipid testing market is a major opportunity for Afinion and will significantly extend the menu of this unique instrument, as well as meeting our commitment to physicians to develop a genuine multi-assay, point-of-care system. Development work has already commenced and our expectation is that the lipid panel test will be available for launch by 2001.”