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Blood Screening Team Wins 'Gold' at Olympic Games.
Basel, 15 August 2008
Roche's Blood Screening team is feeling the thrill of victory. They recently secured the blood screening project for the Beijing Olympic Games with the cobas TaqScreen MPX Test on the cobas s 201 System - a showcase for Roche’s powerful Nucleic Acid Technology.
"The 2008 Olympic Games are very important for China and the officials want to make sure that the athletes and visitors are optimally cared for, from lodging to medical attention," said Jerry Kuo, International Product Manager. This includes blood supplies for athletes or spectators in case of emergency.
To ensure that they have the safest blood supplies possible, the Olympic Games host chose Roche’s cobas TaqScreen MPX Test to screen approximately 15,000 donations for HIV-1 (Group M and O), HIV-2, hepatitis B and hepatitis C in a single assay. The three-month project covers the time period before and after the Games (August 8-24).
Best performance and reputation
The Beijing Olympic Games project is a big success for Roche Diagnostics China, whose Blood Screening team worked more than a year to acquire it. The customer evaluated three main factors: performance (the sensitivity of the tests and the performance of the system), price, and customer support. Mike Nolan, International Business Leader for Blood Screening, noted that the customer liked the ease of use and full automation of the cobas s 201 System, in addition to Roche’s solid history. "The dedicated work of our Chinese colleagues was supported by Roche’s global reputation, which played a part in this project. Having a global name behind this product was important to the customer," Nolan said. "The world is looking at Beijing right now - this is a high-profile opportunity for us worldwide."
In contrast to EMEA and North America, where blood screening practices are well established, many countries in the APAC region are still learning the intricacies of blood screening, and in particular NAT screening (see infobox). Over the past decade, China has been consolidating its testing sites and is now in the process of converting to commercial tests, rather than ‘homebrew’ tests, which are developed in local labs and typically don't incorporate the same level of quality control or offer the same level of reproducibility.
"Right now is the best time to establish our presence here," stressed Jerry Kuo. Roche is currently in the process of registering its cobas s 201 blood screening platform and the multiplex HIV and hepatitis test in China. This requires performing a clinical trial to prove the solid performance of the cobas s 201 System as well as the cobas TaqScreen MPX Test. Since the end of 2007, more than 40,000 blood samples have been tested as part of the trial. The APAC regional Global Systems Support (GSS) team installed the cobas s 201 System at the trial sites and trained the local blood bank involved in the trial, with the assistance of the local team from Roche Diagnostics China.
"Global and local teams across Roche Diagnostics worked together very diligently to make this happen," said Willy Kuo, head of Molecular Diagnostics and Applied Science at Roche Diagnostics China. "This collaboration and the relationships we’ve built all played a part in our success. This project could potentially open other doors for us in China." |
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