In March, the company’s newest integrated chemistry and immunoassay workstation — the UniCel® DxC 600i Synchron® Access® clinical system — obtained clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The system expands the UniCel family of instruments and introduces the first UniCel system that performs both chemistry and immunoassay testing simultaneously from a single point of sample entry.
The DxC 600i, available for general distribution mid-year, enables clinical laboratories to enjoy an on-board capacity of 89 reagents and a menu of more than 150 different tests, ranging from cardiac and tumor markers to tests for renal function, diabetes and more.
“Workcells are often the first step in automating a clinical diagnostics laboratory, bringing valuable workflow benefits and efficiencies. This latest addition to the UniCel product family helps labs obtain the perfect blend of chemistry and immunoassay testing with exceptional productivity,” said Jeff McHugh, Group Vice President of Lab Systems and Routine Testing for Beckman Coulter’s diagnostics business. “In line with our simplify, automate and innovate focus, we’ve carefully designed this system to offer labs tremendous flexibility to meet their operational needs, including workstation consolidation, increased reliability, greater productivity and lower costs.”
The DxC 600i is the second system from Beckman Coulter to offer closed-tube sample (CTS) and closed-tube aliquotting (CTA) capabilities. Like the previous generation SYNCHRON LXi® 725, the DxC 600i eliminates de-capping and re-capping steps in the laboratory process to help increase lab efficiency and enhance operator safety. The system offers a throughput of up to 990 chemistry tests per hour and up to 100 immunoassay tests per hour.
The DxC 600i, with the optional data manager, also features automatic sample re-run of abnormal results to improve total turnaround time; review-by-exception to improve operator’s focus on abnormal results; and automatic stat notification to speed test results for critical samples.
The first system in the UniCel series, the UniCel DxI 800 Access immunoassay system, debuted in 2003 and gave laboratories the ability to perform up to 400 immunoassay tests per hour. In January 2005, the company’s second release — the UniCel DxC 600 Synchron clinical system — featured throughput of up to 990 chemistry tests per hour. One month later, the UniCel DxC 800 Synchron clinical system offered peak throughput of 1,440 tests per hour, representing an ideal solution for higher-volume labs.
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