World's First Closed System Drug Compounding Robot Draws Crowds at ASHP

PORT WASHINGTON, New York, January 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Equashield, a leading provider of Closed System Transfer Devices (CSTD) for safe and simple handling of hazardous drugs, unveiled the world's first robot with a closed system, the Equashield® Pro, at the ASHP Midyear Meeting in Las Vegas.

The Equashield booth attracted a large number of visitors to see a novel way of compounding hazardous drugs.  For those not at the conference, a series of live videoed sessions demonstrates how the Equashield® Pro facilitates the fast and efficient compounding of patient-specific chemotherapy drug doses, while protecting the healthcare worker.

Attendees' responses were overwhelmingly positive to the only robot currently utilizing a closed system for the preparation of hazardous drugs. In an interview with Pharmacy Times at this year's ASHP, one hospital operations executive had this to say:

"We are creating a new oncology center and this would fit us perfectly," said Pat Long, Operations Supervisor for Henry Ford Health System. "We have already been looking at the Equashield® CSTD, the new robot has made it even more appealing for us."

Designed specifically around Equashield's leading CSTD to provide an additional layer of protection to the healthcare worker, Equashield® Pro's innovative design dramatically shortens the compounding process. Concurrently, dose verification software significantly reduces medication dosage and identification errors in hospitals.

"The positive responses to Equashield® Pro is indicative of how central the incorporation of CSTDs has become to the hazardous drug compounding process. We are already receiving invitation to formally bid from hospitals of all sizes for the Equashield® Pro," said Marino Kriheli, Co-founder of Equashield. "As the use of closed systems becomes mandated under USP 800 guidelines, institutions are looking to incorporate a system to protect healthcare workers while maintaining high output throughout the compounding process. The Equashield® Pro will enable this."

The Equashield® Pro will next be presented at the 22^nd Congress of the EAHP taking place in Cannes, France, March 22-24, 2017.

About Equashield 

Equashield is a leading provider of a full range of manual and automated solutions to hospitals for the compounding and administration of hazardous drugs. Equashield's product suite includes EQUASHIELD II, its flagship Closed System Transfer Device (CSTD), and EQUASHIELD® Pro, the first ever closed system drug compounding robot. Equashield's CSTD is clinically-proven to protect healthcare professionals from hazardous drug exposure.

The globally awarded EQUASHIELD^® II covers more routes of exposure than alternative systems by preventing contamination of syringe plungers and drug residuals on connector surfaces, as well as exposure to drug vapors. Studies have shown Equashield's CSTD to be faster to deploy and easier to use than competing systems and the system has passed the proposed 2015 alcohol vapor containment protocol from NIOSH, confirming that it can contain the harshest vapors & emissions. EQUASHIELD is in use by hundreds of hospitals and clinics around the world, and has been both cleared by the FDA under the ONB product code, and substantiated in FDA-cleared labeling as preventing microbial ingress for up to seven days. 

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For more information: http://www.equashield.com

Media Contact:
Finn Partners for Equashield
Nicole Grubner
[email protected]
@nicolegrubner
+1-929-222-8011

SOURCE Equashield