Olympus says its inaugural AU3000i user focus group meeting, held at the Intercontinental Resort Berchtesgaden, has been a great success
Over 25 customers attended to give valuable feedback and share their knowledge and experiences of the new Olympus immunoassay platform.
Set in the inspirational mountain resort of Berchtesgaden in Germany, the first User Focus Group of its kind for the new analyser provided an excellent forum for discussion on the performance and reliability of the AU3000i.
With a mixture of customer presentations and workshops over the two days, the evolution of the AU3000i, in terms of user comfort and handling, safety and reliability, as well as assay menu extensions, was evaluated and reviewed.
Feedback on the AU3000i from customers was very positive, confirming it to be "very reliable" with "excellent service" from Olympus.
For example, Ilza Salamunic of the Clinical Hospital Split, Croatia speaking on his experiences of using the AU3000i under routine conditions, reported how installation and set up took just one day, with ready support available from the Olympus team.
Also speaking at the meeting was Katharina Pachmann from the Friedrich Schiller-Universitat Jena, Germany, who discussed the analysis of single tumour cells using Olympus technology.
Brian Sheridan from the Belfast Health and Social Services Trust, Ireland, presented his evaluation of assay performance of fertility tests on the AU3000i.
In this he concluded that the "AU3000i immunoassay analyser is a very precise instrument and meets all clinical needs for serum LH, FSH and progesterone".
By working in partnership, Olympus is developing the AU3000i platform with its customers expectations in mind.
As a result, the future of the AU3000i will see enhanced data management for external data storage devices, simplyfied system performance checks and automatic assay wash stability and nozzle blockage alerts.
The extension of the assay menu to include more cardiac, tumour and fertility markers also makes the AU3000i suitable for a broader range of immunochemistry applications.
