Premier Awards Roche Diagnostics Blood Glucose and Integrated Platform Contracts, Sole Glucose Supplier Status for ASCEND Program

INDIANAPOLIS, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Roche Diagnostics announced today that it has been awarded contracts for blood glucose monitoring and clinical chemistry/immunoassay lab analyzers from Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., Inc., the group purchasing unit of Premier, Inc. Roche was also named the sole source supplier for blood glucose in Premier's exclusive ASCEND supply chain performance program. When combined with an existing molecular diagnostics agreement, the contracts give Premier members streamlined access to virtually the entire Roche Diagnostics hospital product portfolio.

Based in Charlotte, N.C., the Premier healthcare alliance provides knowledge sharing and group contracting services to help its 2,300 member hospitals reduce staffing needs, improve productivity and lower expenses. Premier's ASCEND (Accelerated Supply Chain Endeavor) group purchasing program is a special initiative designed to enable a committed group of member hospitals to achieve rapid improvements in supply chain performance and efficiency.

"With the ASCEND program, we are raising the bar for the healthcare supply chain, and we're presenting members with a purchasing portfolio that offers the best value proposition in the industry," said Mike Alkire, president of Premier Purchasing Partners. "Members that commit to doing 80 percent of their business with all Premier ASCEND contractors have access to special pricing and to exclusive benefits, including benchmarking to help them measure their performance and identify opportunities to reduce operating costs." Roche was selected as the single supplier for the ASCEND program in the blood glucose category.

Roche products covered by the glucose contracts include the ACCU-CHEK® Inform and ACCU-CHEK Aviva blood glucose monitoring systems, test strips and lancets, RALS® information management solutions and 24/7/365 customer service. The clinical chemistry/immunoassay contract includes Roche's full line of laboratory analyzers, such as the integrated cobas® 6000 analyzer series, as well as automation systems, reagents, middleware and technical service. The three-year contracts for blood glucose and clinical chemistry/immunoassay products are effective March 1 and April 1, respectively.

About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

The Premier healthcare alliance is more than 2,300 U.S. hospitals and 64,000-plus other healthcare sites working together to improve healthcare quality and affordability. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier works with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has offices in San Diego, Philadelphia and Washington.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics and is a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalized healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2008, Roche had over 80,000 employees worldwide and invested almost 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 45.6 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com or www.roche-diagnostics.us.

All trademarks used or mentioned in this release are protected by law. RALS is a trademark of Medical Automation Systems Inc.

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SOURCE Roche Diagnostics