The APAS Independence announced as a finalist for the Medical Design Excellence Awards 2018
30 May 2018
Nominated as a finalist in the category of Testing and Diagnostic Products and Systems, LBT Innovations (LBT) and Planet Innovations (PI), the designers and engineers behind the APAS Independence, will be nervously awaiting the final decision due to be announced on 12 June at a special awards ceremony in New York.
The Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) is the premier awards program for the medtech industry, running since 1998, dedicated to recognizing significant achievements in medical product design and engineering that improves the quality of healthcare delivery and accessibility. Judging of the entries is conducted by an impartial panel of jurors made up of clinicians, engineers, and designers who carefully review all product submissions. Entries are scored based on five criteria:
• Design and Engineering Innovations
• Functional (User-Related) Innovations
• Benefits to Overall Healthcare
• Benefits to Patients
• Market Differentiation/Competitive Landscape
The first product to market for Clever Culture Systems, the APAS Independence is a stand-alone automated culture plate reading instrument that consistently screens and sorts 200 Petri dishes per hour. The innovative triage system identifies negative plates and removes them from the workflow allowing microbiologists to focus on the significant plates requiring their expertise, creating efficiencies in laboratories and supporting accelerated reporting of patient results.
Attending the award ceremony representing both Clever Culture Systems and LBT Innovations will be Brent Barnes, CEO of LBT Innovations and Director of Clever Culture Systems and Peter Bradley, General Manager Clever Culture Systems. “It’s exciting to be nominated for this distinguished award, which is the second time for LBT Innovations. In 2010 LBT was the gold winner for the PREVI Isola high-throughput specimen and agar plate management system. The LBT developed artificial intelligence APAS platform is a global first, with installations of the APAS Independence in Australia and Germany. I look forward to attending the ceremony in New York in June.”
“Being recognised by the Medical Design Excellence Awards is well-deserved international recognition of the contribution Clever Culture Systems is making to the industry. As their development and manufacturing partner, Planet Innovation is proud to support the global rollout of the APAS Independence.” – Ian MacFarlane, General Manager Planet Innovation.
Recently presented at ECCMID 2018 in Madrid, a paper detailing trials of the instrument at the St Vincent’s Pathology, Melbourne, showed that the APAS Independence performed with a high level of sensitivity and specificity and facilitated operational efficiencies in both specimen processing and culture reading.
Clever Culture Systems is a joint venture between LBT Innovations (Australia) and Hettich Holding Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs-GmbH (Germany) with both parties providing valuable expertise to the project. Suppliers involved in the development of the APAS Independence also include Planet Innovations, Alphagate and Hydrix.