Abaxis, Inc. Increases Reagent Disc Offering for Physician Office Market With Release of BioChemistry Panel Plus

UNION CITY, Calif., Nov. 12, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Abaxis, Inc. (Nasdaq: ABAX), a medical products company manufacturing point-of-care blood analysis systems, today announced the release of a new Piccolo® reagent disc panel called BioChemistry Panel Plus. This new reagent disc will be used by healthcare professionals in conjunction with the Piccolo Xpress point-of-care analyzer. As a result of this new panel configuration, U.S. healthcare professionals can now conduct on-site chemistry analysis in less than 12 minutes for general inflammation and infection in combination with comprehensive liver and kidney function diagnostics.

The new BioChemistry Panel Plus contains the C-Reactive Protein (CRP) assay that received 510(k) clearance in late January 2010. In addition to CRP, the BioChemistry Panel Plus contains the following test configuration: ALB, ALP, ALT, AMY, AST, BUN, Ca, CRE, GGT, GLU, TP, UA. This configuration encompasses a broad spectrum of internal organ diagnostics including liver, kidney, pancreas and metabolic functions.

The BioChemistry Panel Plus is likely to be useful for practices that are interested in the detection, monitoring and treatment of diseases with inflammation or infection disorders. The new panel may also have broad applications in the European and Asia Pacific markets, where CRP is widely used as a standard test in general health screenings and as part of routine clinical practice.

“The addition of the new BioChemistry Panel Plus is a testament to our commitment to continued innovation in medical diagnostics,” said Clint Severson, chairman and chief executive officer of Abaxis, Inc. “We look forward to continuing to raise the bar on diagnostic technologies that allow physicians to better care for their patients, improve the efficiencies of their practices and reduce the overall cost of healthcare, while increasing individual practice profitability.”

With the Piccolo delivering lab-accurate blood chemistry results on-site in minutes, physicians can make confident treatment decisions while the patient is in their office, thereby increasing the speed and quality of care while reducing the unreimbursed time spent preparing labs and relaying patient results. The capability to diagnose and treat in one visit can have a dramatic impact on practice throughput. Clinics can see more patients each day by eliminating unnecessary call-backs and follow up visits due to standard 24-hour lab turnaround. And, by having immediate results while they’re in front of the physician, patients can experience the real impact of their compliance or non-compliance to treatment regimens, which can improve outcomes and reduce hospitalizations.

About Abaxis

Abaxis develops, manufactures and markets portable blood analysis systems for use in any veterinary or human patient-care setting to provide clinicians with rapid blood constituent measurements. The system consists of a compact, 5.1 kilogram (11.2 pounds), portable analyzer and a series of single-use plastic discs, called reagent discs that contain all the chemicals required to perform a panel of up to 14 tests on veterinary patients and 26 tests on human patients. The system can be operated with minimal training and performs multiple routine tests on whole blood, serum or plasma samples. The system provides test results in less than 12 minutes with the precision and accuracy equivalent to a clinical laboratory analyzer.

This press release includes statements that constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the “Reform Act”). Abaxis claims the protection of the safe-harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are often characterized by the terms “may,” “believes,” “projects,” “expects,” “anticipates,” or words of similar import, and do not reflect historical facts. Specific forward-looking statements contained in this press release or in our conference call may be affected by risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those related to the market acceptance of the company’s products and the continuing development of its products, required United States Food and Drug Administration clearance and other government approvals, risks associated with manufacturing and distributing its products on a commercial scale free of defects, risks related to the introduction of new instruments manufactured by third parties, risks associated with entering the human diagnostic market on a larger scale, risks associated with liquidity concerns related to our auction rate securities, risks related to the protection of the company’s intellectual property or claims of infringement of intellectual property asserted by third parties, predictions related to condition of the United States economy, risks involved in carrying of inventory and other risks detailed from time to time in Abaxis’ periodic reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statements were made. Abaxis does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Abaxis, Inc.