Abbott's new c4000 system delivers sophisticated science in a compact footprint

CHICAGO, July 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry's Clinical Lab Expo in Chicago, Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced the launch of a new diagnostic instrument -- the ARCHITECT c4000 clinical chemistry analyzer which performs diagnostic tests that monitor general health including a patient's levels of sodium, potassium, chloride and organ function.

The new ARCHITECT c4000 seamlessly integrates with Abbott's i1000SR immunoassay analyzer to form the ARCHITECT ci4100(TM), an automated analyzer that completes both immunoassay and chemistry tests on one platform. With these two products, Abbott now offers chemistry, immunoassay, and integrated diagnostic testing solutions to improve the performance and efficiency of laboratories of all sizes.

Abbott is the only company offering high, medium and low-volume integrated diagnostic testing solutions that leverage the same software, reagents and sample carriers. Standardizing to a single family of instruments like Abbott's ARCHITECT products gives labs the ability to optimize processes, minimize errors, and reduce result variability, which is becoming increasingly important as clinicians rely more and more on laboratory diagnostics to guide their treatment decisions.

Abbott's family of ARCHITECT instruments generates accurate and equivalent results across instruments and labs, even at multiple sites, because these instruments share detection technologies, reagents, and software. This standardization is critical as hospitals and the Obama administration continue to emphasize the importance of capturing patient histories in electronic medical records. In a recent study of U.S. hospitals, 73 percent of health care decision makers and executives identified electronic medical records (EMR) as one of their top priorities for 2009.

"Standardized results across laboratory instruments is increasingly important as the reputation of the laboratory and its influence on quality healthcare depends on providing consistent, fast and accurate results to enable the medical staff on site and in other locations to make critical treatment decisions," said Michael Warmuth, senior vice president, diagnostics, Abbott. "We're pleased that Abbott can meet these and other critical needs of laboratories through our complete family of ARCHITECT products."

In addition to standardization across instruments, Abbott's ARCHITECT c4000 and ci4100 are designed to deliver improved productivity to lower volume laboratories. The c4000 analyzer can generate up to 800 test results per hour while the ci4100 integrated system can generate up to 900 test results per hour. With an extensive menu of diagnostic tests and a large sample and reagent load-up capacity, the ARCHITECT c4000 and ci4100 can consolidate a laboratory's workload to increase efficiency and save costs. ARCHITECT instruments are simple to operate with advanced sample management capabilities from the innovative three-dimensional Robotic Sample Handler. With this feature, once manual steps are now automated, which saves laboratories time and money and better meets their increased testing demands.

In addition, Abbott's integrated instruments are the only products on the market that feature no clinically significant sample-to-sample carryover, less than 0.1 parts per million, without resorting to unnecessary sample handling, plastic disposables like pipette tips or extended processing times due to the risk of contamination.

"We evaluated the ARCHITECT c4000 with one of our partner laboratories and found that the ARCHITECT c4000 provides laboratory efficiencies with commonality and equivalent results across the family," said Rob Kerekes, chemistry charge technologist at Huron-Perth Healthcare Alliance in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. "The c4000 is ideal for laboratories requiring a reliable analyzer that takes up less space."

About the ARCHITECT Instrument Family

The ARCHITECT family of analyzers includes the i1000SR and i2000SR for immunoassay testing, the c4000, c8000, and c16000 for clinical chemistry testing, and the ci4100, ci8200, and ci16200 integrated immunoassay/chemistry systems. Abbott's unique technologies include the Robotic Sample Handler to prioritize emergency tests; sample clot and bubble detection to verify sampling integrity; and FlexRate and CHEMIFLEX assay technologies. ARCHITECT systems use identical easy-to-use software and common reagents across all members of the family, ensuring fast and accurate results while requiring a very small sample volume, resulting in improved performance. These features not only save laboratories' time by reducing the time needed for instrument training, testing and troubleshooting, but also reduce inventory costs and reduce the potential for sample contamination -- leading to better results for laboratories, physicians and, ultimately, patients.

About Abbott Diagnostics

Abbott Diagnostics is a global leader in in vitro diagnostics and offers a broad range of innovative instrument systems and tests for hospitals, reference labs, blood banks, physician offices and clinics. With more than 69,000 institutional customers in more than 100 countries, Abbott's diagnostic products offer customers automation, convenience, cost effectiveness and flexibility. Abbott has helped transform the practice of medical diagnostics from an art to a science through the company's commitment to improving patient care and lowering overall costs. The history of Abbott Diagnostics is filled with examples of first-of-a-kind products and significant technological advancements, including the development of the very first diagnostic test to detect HIV.

About Abbott

Abbott is a global, broad-based health care company devoted to the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceuticals and medical products, including nutritionals, devices and diagnostics. The company employs more than 72,000 people and markets its products in more than 130 countries.

Abbott's news releases and other information are available on the company's Web site at www.abbott.com.

ARCHITECT, i1000SR, i2000SR, c4000, c8000, c16000, ci4100, ci8200, ci16200, CHEMIFLEX and FlexRate are trademarks of Abbott Laboratories.

CONTACT:
Media, Ann Fahey-Widman, +1-847-938-6388,
or Financial, Tina Ventura, +1-847-935-9390,
both of Abbott
Web Site: http://www.abbott.com