York Teaching Hospital Signs Up BD FocalPoint™ and Renews £1.3m Cervical Cancer Screening Contract

Source BioScience, the international diagnostics and genetic analysis business, announces that, following a competitive tender process, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has renewed its contract for liquid based cytology. York has also committed to implementing Source BioScience’s automated cervical cancer screening BD FocalPoint™ technology. The agreement is worth a total of £1.3 million over three years and will commence on 1 April 2013.

Source BioScience provides customers with a unique and complete solution for cervical cancer screening, including HPV testing, from sample collection, processing, imaging and diagnostic testing. The newest development in the screening process is BD FocalPoint™, the only automated technology for cervical cancer screening approved for use by the NHS, which is distributed in the UK by Source BioScience alone.

The BD FocalPoint™ technology is able to analyze and identify up to 25% of screening samples that can be reported as “No Further Review” requiring no primary manual examination. With over 3.9 million tests being undertaken across England and Wales during 2011-2012, the BD FocalPoint™ technology represents a significant reduction in laboratory workload and the need for additional staffing and outsourcing.

York Teaching Hospital is the fifth NHS cytology centre in England and Wales to adopt Source BioScience’s BD FocalPoint™ and the 7th platform to be placed within the NHS. Trevor Hair, Head Biomedical Scientist for Cytology at York, said: “We’re delighted to have secured this contract on behalf of the Trust. In taking on additional cervical screening work from Hull and East Riding, our workload will increase from around 54,000 to 90,000 samples a year. The contract will make York laboratory the single cervical cytology screening provider for North and East Yorkshire and mean that all women who require a cervical screening test will now be able to have their samples examined at a single laboratory that will utilise the latest technology available in the UK.”

Dr Nick Ash, CEO at Source BioScience, commented: “Since the NHS published its implementation guidelines in July 2011, there has been significant interest from NHS Trusts in the BD FocalPoint™ technology. The renewal of the York contract and the adoption of the technology by another NHS Trust, demonstrates the determination to provide better timeliness and efficiencies for cervical cancer screening. This technology is an important growth driver for our business and we aim to win more contracts during 2013.”

During 2012, over two million women had their cervical cancer screening test undertaken using the technology provided by Source BioScience, which represents over 50% of all testing in England and Wales.