UNION CITY, Calif., April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Abaxis, Inc. (NasdaqGS: ABAX), a medical products company manufacturing point-of-care blood analysis systems, today announced organizational changes to its leadership structure.

Effective immediately, Donald Wood, chief operations officer and interim leader of North American Animal Health (NAAH), has been appointed Chief Operating Officer.  Mr. Wood will continue to lead operations with an expanded leadership role over all Domestic Sales & Marketing for Abaxis, including both the Animal Health & Medical divisions.  Reporting to Mr. Wood will be Craig Tockman, DVM and Rick Betts, Director of Medical Marketing.  "Don's positive contributions during our second half of fiscal year 2014, leading the Animal Health team along with his prior leadership roles makes him best qualified to lead both the Veterinary & Medical divisions and to create synergies within our organization,"  said Clint Severson, chairman, and chief executive officer of Abaxis, Inc.  Further, the Board of Directors has appointed Dr. Tockman to the executive role of Vice President, Sales & Marketing – NAAH.  "Having a DVM with industry experience leading the Animal Health business and supporting Don gives us a competitive advantage," Mr. Severson concluded.

About Abaxis
Abaxis develops, manufactures, markets and sells 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 13 tests on veterinary patients and 14 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.  The veterinary business also provides to the animal health and research market a line of hematology instruments for point-of-care complete blood counts (CBC), a specialty instrument to screen for and detect clotting disorders and to measure equine fibrinogen levels, a handheld instrument for the rapid assessment of certain critical care tests and rapid point-of-care tests for Heartworm infections, Parvovirus, Giardia and Lyme disease.  Abaxis, through its AVRL division, provides routine laboratory testing as well as specialty testing for veterinarians nationwide.  For more information, visit http://www.abaxis.com.

Forward Looking Statements
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.