SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwire - 05/07/10) - Diazyme Laboratories announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Diazyme 510(k) clearance to market its SMART HbA1c Assay on its new SMART Point of Care System for diabetes monitoring. The SMART HbA1c Assay offers rapid testing capabilities and is based on Diazyme’s proprietary Direct Enzymatic HbA1c assay technology. The assay can be run from a simple finger stick blood sample obtained in a physician’s office and delivers accurate and reliable results in minutes. Unlike other point of care systems for HbA1c, the Diazyme SMART HbA1c Assay has been shown to have no interference from common hemoglobin variants including Hb E, Hb C, Hb S and Hb D traits. This means the assay offers freedom from interference in HbA1c testing, which is of special importance today as the HbA1c test is now considered the key test for diagnosis and screening of diabetic disease.
“Diazyme’s new SMART HbA1c Assay provides a convenient and cost effective test method which will benefit laboratories, physicians and the patients they care for,” said Dr. Chong Yuan, Managing Director of Diazyme Laboratories. In addition to HbA1c, the SMART Point of Care System offers the capability to run tests for monitoring renal function as well as cardiac risk assessment. Additional assays in development for the SMART Point of Care System include Cystatin C, which has been shown to be a more reliable marker than creatinine for early detection of acute and chronic kidney disease, and Enzymatic Homocysteine and high sensitivity hsCRP, both of which are important biomarkers for cardiac and stroke risk assessment.
Diazyme Laboratories is a division of General Atomics headquartered in La Jolla, California. Diazyme uses its enzyme platform technologies to develop low cost and uniform diagnostic products for clinical and research uses. Products include diagnostic blood tests for liver disease, cardiac markers, diabetes, renal disease and electrolytes. Information regarding Diazyme’s enzyme technology and related products can be found in its website at www.diazyme.com.
For Further Information Contact: Diazyme Laboratories: Douglas Borses 860-729-0121 doug.borses@diazyme.com Public Relations: Doug Fouquet (858) 455-2173 doug.fouquet@gat.com
