SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --- Cepheid today announced speaker and program highlights for its symposium, “On-Demand HAI Testing: Good Medicine and Good Business,” which the company will host at the 2009 Association for Professionals in Infection Control (APIC) annual conference, taking place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, June 7th - 10th. Cepheid’s GeneXpert(R) Systems and menu of molecular diagnostic tests will be on display in booth #906 on the exhibition floor.
“Management and prevention of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) is a shared responsibility that includes the entire healthcare industry,” said Sandra Finley, Cepheid’s Vice President of Marketing. “We are pleased to present industry experts who will discuss the importance of reducing and eliminating HAI infections and the operational benefits that these investments bring in quality improvements, patient outcomes, and hospital throughput efficiencies.”
The symposium, “On-Demand HAI Testing: Good Medicine and Good Business,” is scheduled for Wednesday, June 10, 2009 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. EST. Interested parties, unable to attend the APIC conference, are invited to listen to the event live via webcast. To access the live webcast, please register through Cepheid’s website at www.cepheid.com/events at least 15 minutes before the scheduled start time to download any necessary audio or plug-in software. APIC attendees can register to attend this exhibitor-sponsored symposium while at the conference.
The scheduled presenters are:
Healthcare-associated infections exact a significant toll on human life, and are among the top ten leading causes of death in the United States. Recent reports estimate hospital stays for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection have more than tripled since 2000 and represent $20 billion in excess healthcare costs each year. Similarly, Clostridium difficile infections have been increasing in incidence and severity, and have become a substantive and growing burden in hospitalized patients, prompting the need for earlier and accurate detection.
About Cepheid
Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Cepheid is an on-demand molecular diagnostics company that develops, manufactures, and markets fully-integrated systems and tests for genetic analysis in the clinical, industrial and biothreat markets. The company’s systems enable rapid, sophisticated genetic testing for organisms and genetic-based diseases by automating otherwise complex manual laboratory procedures. The company’s easy-to-use systems integrate a number of complicated and time-intensive steps, including sample preparation, DNA amplification and detection, which enable the analysis of complex biological samples in its proprietary test cartridges. Through its strong molecular biology capabilities, the company is focusing on those applications where rapid molecular testing is particularly important, such as identifying infectious disease and cancer in the clinical market; food, agricultural, and environmental testing in the industrial market; and identifying bio-terrorism agents in the biothreat market. See http://www.cepheid.com for more information.
CONTACT: media, Jared Tipton, +1-408-400-8377, jared.tipton@cepheid.com,
or investors, Jacquie Ross, +1-408-400-8329,
investor.relations@cepheid.com, both of Cepheid
Web site: http://www.cepheid.com/
