NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Meridian Bioscience announced after the close of the market on Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Premier healthcare alliance to offer members of the alliance Meridian's illumigene C. difficile and illumigene Group B Streptococcus molecular tests.
Meridian will offer the two tests to the 2,500 US hospitals and more than 81,000 other healthcare sites that are part of Premier at specially negotiated prices.
The C. difficile test was cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration in July 2010 while the Group B Streptococcus test was cleared in December.
The illumigene tests are based on loop-mediated isothermal DNA amplification technology, which can yield results in less than one hour, Meridian said.
Premier is an alliance of hospitals and healthcare sites. It maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial, and outcomes information, and operates a healthcare purchasing network.