OraSure: Health care provider orders OraQuick HIV test from Abbott to distribute at 2,400 facilities

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, April 19 - OraSure Technologies, Inc. said Wednesday that Novation, the health care contracting services company of VHA, Inc., a health care provider alliance of more than 2,400 not-for-profit health care organizations, and the University HealthSystem Consortium, has signed an agreement with Abbott Laboratories to make the OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV-1/ 2 Antibody Test available throughout Novation's network of health care facilities.

The Novation health care network includes nearly 3,000 members, according to a company news release.

Abbott, the company's exclusive distributor of the OraQuick Advance HIV-1/ 2 test to hospitals in the United States, has signed a single-source new technology agreement with Novation. The contract began April 1 and will run through March 31, 2009, officials said.

Providing results in as little as 20 minutes, OraQuick Advance is the only rapid, point-of-care test for the detection of antibodies to both HIV-1 and HIV-2 approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use on oral fluid, finger stick or venipuncture whole blood and plasma specimens.

The test also is CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments Act of 1988) waived for all specimen types except plasma. OraSure Technologies commercially launched the OraQuick Advance test in October 2004, officials said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued draft guidelines in 2005 that urged health care professionals to increase HIV testing among age-appropriate patients in hospital emergency departments and pregnant women whose HIV status is unknown. The CDC reported that conducting HIV screening on presenting mothers could result in virtually eliminating all mother-to-infant disease transmission among those found to be preliminarily positive and treated prior to delivery.

Based in Bethlehem, Pa., OraSure Technologies develops, manufactures and markets oral fluid specimen collection devices using proprietary oral fluid technologies, diagnostic products including immunoassays and other in vitro diagnostic tests, and other medical devices.

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