Olympus America has signed an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific for open-track automation for clinical laboratories.
The new product offering will compliment existing Olympus Lab Automation products, including the OLA2500.
The agreement between the companies will allow laboratory professionals to incorporate Olympus AU-series clinical chemistry and immunoassay analysers, including various third-party analysers.
The open track-based system will offer mid-size to large hospital and regional laboratories flexibility and access to additional test capabilities, and will also allow customers to consolidate and automate such sample processing procedures as decapping, centrifugation, aliquoting, recapping and storage/retrieval, which is in development.
The agreement gives Olympus the right to distribute Thermo Fisher's TC Automation product line, a fully featured, track-based laboratory automation product line, in the Americas.
Olympus will handle sales and marketing and provide primary level service and support of the automation products.
Key benefits of laboratory automation include more efficient sample management, improved laboratory services and shortened turnaround times.
By automating the main pre-analytical steps, such as centrifugation, decapping, aliquoting and sorting, TC Automation helps to manage current and future workloads; it interfaces with Olympus systems plus a wide selection of third-party instruments.
