NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Response Biomedical announced on Thursday a US distribution deal covering its cardiovascular portfolio of Ramp products.
Under the agreement, Louisville, Ky.-based Laboratory Supply Company (LABSCO) will distribute Ramp products in the US exclusively to hospital with less than 150 beds. The agreement is between Response Biomed's newly formed, wholly owned US subsidiary Response Point of Care and LABSCO for an initial period of three years, renewable upon mutual agreement.
Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Privately held LABSCO distributes clinical laboratory products in the US.
LABSCO will initially market Response's cardiovascular POC tests panels on the Ramp Reader in all settings and on the Ramp 200 reader in laboratory settings. Response said it will continue to make the cardiovascular POC test panel on the Ramp 200 and Ramp Reader available outside the US. It also will continue marketing the Ramp Flu A+B Assay and Ramp RSV Assay on the Ramp 200 globally where approved by regulators.
The Ramp platform is a portable scanning fluorescence quantitative analysis platform for near-patient testing.
"This is a very important agreement for Response as it marks a significant step into the US market for POCT in the cardiovascular arena, which is one of the largest markets in the world," Tim Shannon, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Vancouver, British Columbia-based Response Biomed, said in a statement. "We believe that LABSCO has the experience and reputation to maximize our efforts to gain traction and to help us penetrate a market that we believe will greatly enhance our growth in the near term and beyond."