Step by step.
biz.yahoo.com
Response Biomedical Responding To Rising Healthcare Costs Through Rapid Diagnostics
VANCOUVER, B.C.--(BW HealthWire)--June 29, 2001--Response Biomedical (CDNX:RBM. - news)
Company Proceeding With FDA Submissions For New Diagnostic
System That Delivers Laboratory Results At A Fraction Of The Cost.
As an aging population continues to drive the cost of healthcare in an upward spiral, financial pressures are forcing healthcare providers around the world to control expenditures.
The demand for healthcare could reach unmanageable levels over the next twenty years as baby boomers enter their late 50s and 60s.
At up to US$5,000 per day, the most expensive venue for healthcare delivery in the US is the hospital intensive care unit. Keeping patients out of the hospital and shifting the location of healthcare delivery to the physician's office, clinic and the patient's home is becoming a rising priority to significantly reduce the cost of healthcare.
Point-of-care (POC) testing is increasingly being utilized in the health community, not only to decrease medical costs, but also to provide improved patient care. POC testing lowers costs by reducing the need for traditional laboratory-based testing, and improves patient care by increasing the turn-around time on medical test results, thereby enabling more rapid decision making by health professionals.
Response Biomedical Corp. is commercializing a new proprietary Rapid Analyte Measurement Platform (RAMP)(TM) diagnostic platform to provide rapid, quantitative test results at the patient point-of-care. The Company is using its patented RAMP technology to develop a unique, portable, easy-to-use immunoassay system which combines all of the positive attributes of lateral flow immunoassays - simplicity, sensitivity, specificity, reliability, and low cost - with the ability to provide a quantitative result at a level of accuracy currently attainable only with laboratory-based analyzers.
Results of a market research survey of cardiologists from around the world conducted at the latest annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans, Louisiana, clearly underscored the necessity for a rapid, portable, inexpensive quantitative immunoassay system such as RAMP.
``Our RAMP System is designed to be the most simple, cost-effective and accurate quantitative immunodiagostic test platform in the market,'' stated Response Biomedical President & CEO, Bill Radvak. ``With healthcare economics fueling POC diagnostics sales at greater than 20% annually, our technology should prove to be a welcome solution for the medical industry.''
The first tests that Response Biomedical is developing on the RAMP platform are for the cardiac markers myoglobin, CK-MB and troponin I that are used in the diagnosis of a heart attack. The Company recently completed clinical trials of the RAMP Reader and myoglobin test, and expects to file regulatory submissions with the US FDA and Canadian agencies in the next few days.
Response is also developing tests for prostate specific antigen (PSA) to aid in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men in North America with over 200,000 new cases diagnosed annually. Additionally, the Company has completed studies to demonstrate the feasibility of point-of-care tests to monitor digoxin, one of the most frequently prescribed drugs in the world used to help to control heart failure. |
