Molecular Detection Inc. Announces Partnership With Inverness Medical to Distribute Detect-Ready(TM) MRSA Assay in Key European Markets

WAYNE, Pa. and COLOGNE, Germany, March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Molecular Detection Inc. (MDI), a company developing Detect-Ready™ assays designed to increase the speed and accuracy of infectious disease diagnosis, and Inverness Medical Deutschland GmbH today announced that they have entered into an exclusive distribution agreement for MDI's Detect-Ready MRSA assay in the key European markets of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  The companies also announced that the Detect-Ready MRSA assay is available to customers in these countries starting today.  The Detect-Ready MRSA assay offers healthcare providers a high-performance MRSA screening test with an unmatched combination of accuracy, speed, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.  Inverness Medical Deutschland, which is a leading distributor of quality medical diagnostic products in these markets, is a subsidiary of Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc., a global market leader in point-of-care diagnostics.

"Our Detect-Ready MRSA assay offers important advantages to the rapidly growing market for MRSA screening, and we believe that Inverness Medical Deutschland is well-equipped to ensure a successful first launch in Europe," said Todd Wallach, CEO of MDI.  "As a respected distributor of innovative medical products and a leader in point-of-care diagnostics, Inverness Medical is an ideal partner to distribute the Detect-Ready MRSA kit to the key German market.  Their well-established customer network at leading hospitals and knowledgeable representatives will be major assets in helping to drive use of our MRSA assay.  We will be working closely with Inverness and certain of its local affiliates to ensure the successful launch of the Detect-Ready MRSA assay in Germany, Austria and Switzerland." 

Drug-resistant, potentially deadly MRSA infections are a growing problem in health care facilities around the world.  The Detect-Ready MRSA kit is a qualitative real time PCR (rt-PCR) in vitro diagnostic test for the direct detection of MRSA nasal colonization to aid in the prevention and control of MRSA infections in hospitals and other health care settings.  The proprietary technology in the Detect-Ready kits provides a unique differential diagnosis engine that produces highly accurate results, minimizing the false positives and false negatives experienced with other diagnostic screening kits.  Samples for testing are simple to obtain using nasal swabs and the assay's ready-to-use pre-mixed reagents require only the addition of patient sample to run the test, which provides results in less than three hours.  

Unlike other testing products that require special handling, Detect-Ready kits are off-the-shelf room temperature-stabilized and require no refrigeration.  Detect-Ready kits are compatible with multiple rt-PCR platforms currently found in clinical laboratories, including the Roche LightCycler®, Qiagen Rotor-Gene® and Cepheid SmartCycler®.  This flexibility to leverage existing infrastructure and equipment to run Detect-Ready assays eliminates the need for additional hospital capital investment.

"Inverness is committed to delivering high quality, technically advanced products and we are pleased to have been selected to distribute the Detect-Ready MRSA assay in our target markets," said Dave Sieber, Managing Director of Inverness Medical Deutschland.  "Germany is taking a leadership role in combating the spread of MRSA infections, and Austria and Switzerland are also initiating proactive MRSA control programs.  With its unmatched combination of accuracy, speed, versatility and cost effectiveness, we believe the Detect-Ready MRSA assay can contribute to the success of these efforts.  Our dedicated team is committed to bringing our expertise and infrastructure to help ensure the clinical and commercial success of the Detect-Ready MRSA assay in the markets we serve."

Dave Sieber added, "We invite our existing and new customers and friends to visit us and our MDI colleagues at Booth #1 at the 3rd Joint Conference of the Annual Meeting of the German Society of Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM) and the Association for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM) to be held at the Hannover Convention Center from March 28-31, 2010.  This major combined meeting, which is held only once every five years, provides an excellent venue for the MRSA-related activities we are hosting, including a symposium on new infectious disease diagnostics."

The Detect-Ready MRSA assay kit has received CE mark certification for sales in the European Union.

For more information on the VAAM-DGHM Joint Conference, please visit http://www.vaam-dghm2010.de/  

The Inverness Medical symposium, "Neue mikrobiologische Diagnostik in der Infektiologie", will be held on Monday, March 29, 2010 from 12:00-13:30 pm local time.  

About Molecular Detection

Molecular Detection Inc. (MDI), with offices in Wayne, PA and Jerusalem, Israel, is developing and commercializing a portfolio of "sample-to-answer" Detect-Ready™ molecular diagnostic tests for the detection of infectious diseases.  The company's first product is a ready-to-use rapid detection DNA-probe screening test for MRSA.  These staph infections represent a growing problem to the health care system because they cause high mortality, are resistant to treatment, and are easily spread in hospitals.  Successful MRSA control efforts rely on screening potential carriers to prevent the spread of the disease.  The Detect-Ready MRSA test provides increased accuracy, faster time to results and more efficient utilization of hospital resources compared to other MRSA diagnostic products.  MDI's real-time PCR tests are based on novel patent-pending technologies for differential diagnosis and room temperature stabilization.  For more information, visit www.detect-ready.com.  

About Inverness

By developing new capabilities in near-patient diagnosis, monitoring and health management, Inverness Medical Innovations enables individuals to take charge of improving their health and quality of life at home.  Inverness' global leading products and services, as well as its new product development efforts, focus on infectious disease, cardiology, oncology, drugs of abuse and women's health. Inverness serves the German market through Inverness Medical Deutschland GmbH, located in Koln.  For more information, visit www.invmed.de or www.invmed.com.

SOURCE Molecular Detection Inc.