AB Sciex launches immunosuppressants kit to improve health care

Every organ transplant patient in the world faces the potential danger of his/her body rejecting a new organ, such as a heart, kidney or liver. Immunosuppressant drugs are required to help prevent rejection. To help improve the monitoring of this life-saving drug therapy, AB Sciex Pte. Ltd. today announced an immunosuppressants kit for use by European doctors and hospitals.*

The SCIEX IVD-MS™ Immunosuppressants kit is designed to give clinicians fast, accurate information about the level of immunosuppressant drug circulating in a patient's body. Too little could result in the body's rejection of the new organ. Too much could lead to toxic side-effects for the person. Periodic monitoring of these patients, who usually have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives, is critically important.

"AB Sciex is working to ensure the best in patient outcomes," said Rainer Blair, President of AB Sciex. "By making it easier for doctors and clinical laboratories to adopt this assay for immunosuppressant drug monitoring, we are able to improve the results that so directly impact patients' lives. Our new immunosuppressants kit will help deliver high quality, medical-related information that can help save lives."

The SCIEX IVD-MS™ Immunosuppressants kit will work with the AB Sciex IVD-MS™ Analyzer, which is available for use in certain European countries. Together, the kit and the analyzer will create a complete diagnostic solution for European hospitals and clinical laboratories, enabling simultaneous accurate quantitation of cyclosporine A, tacrolimus, sirolimus and everolimus in whole blood.

AB Sciex has emerged as the new go-to provider of IVD kits in Europe for in vitro diagnostic purposes. The immunosuppressants kit, which is expected to ship in Europe in Q2, joins the company's family of IVD kits in Europe.* Other kits include vitamin D analysis as well as an upcoming newborn screening kit, which was announced in a separate news release today.

The technology used to perform this testing is mass spectrometry technology, which is an advanced analytical technique used for decades in the pharmaceutical industry, biomedical research and clinical research. The benefits of this technology for customers include reliable results, comprehensive detection of compounds and metabolites, and fast, accurate quantitative measurement. AB Sciex is a leader in transitioning clinical assays onto mass spectrometry.

AB Sciex is showcasing its immunosuppressants assay in its booth at Analytica this week in Munich, Germany. Clinical experts from AB Sciex will also be on hand to answer questions about the company's other IVD kits. The clinical solutions will also be on display inside the Masstastic Voyage mobile laboratory parked at Analytica.