ABBOTT PARK, Ill., Jan. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced today its Alinity™ ci-series instruments for clinical chemistry and immunoassay diagnostics have obtained CE Mark and are now available in Europe and other countries that recognize CE Mark. These innovative testing solutions help labs run more tests in less time, reduce human error and increase testing productivity.

"Better healthcare begins with a high performing lab. Abbott's Alinity family is an unprecedented approach to providing a more efficient, complete lab solution that no competitor in the industry can match," said Brian Blaser, executive vice president, Diagnostics Products, Abbott. "Abbott is bringing meaningful innovation to diagnostic testing, elevating the role it plays in improving clinical decision making and delivering high quality care to patients."

Offering a flexible, modular design, the "Alinity c" clinical chemistry system, and the "Alinity i" immunoassay system, can operate individually or as an integrated Alinity ci-series unit, all within half the size of current diagnostics systems.

"The Alinity ci has the potential to be a game-changer for our lab, as it is designed to solve many of the issues that we face," said Mario Plebani, M.D., Professor of clinical biochemistry and clinical molecular biology, School of Medicine, University of Padova – Italy. "Every day we see greater demand for tests with fewer resources. The new Alinity systems are easier to use, helping to prevent errors and increase staff efficiency."

In addition to greater capacity in a smaller footprint, the Alinity ci-series maintains the high quality performance of Abbott's current systems and has a number of new features based upon customer insights. Features include:

• Increased loading capacity for samples and tests, and separate lanes to run urgent tests without interrupting lab workflow.
• Continuous access to solutions and supplies, which gives labs the ability to reload solutions without pausing or stopping instruments or testing cycles for prolonged periods of time.
• Solution bottles designed to work like a lock and key to ensure the right solutions can only be inserted into the right location.
• Intuitive menu design and user-friendly interface, common to the Alinity family of instruments, which simplifies training for lab technicians.

"To design the Alinity ci Systems, we spent countless hours with our customers in the design phase to ensure that we built a solution for the issues they face every day–including higher testing volumes, a lack of staffing and space, and complex, time-intensive processes and instruments," said Dennis Gilbert, Ph.D., vice president, research and development, Diagnostics, Abbott. "The Alinity family of systems simplifies diagnostic testing while delivering results that drive better patient outcomes."

Abbott will launch clinical chemistry and immunoassay tests for the Alinity ci-series in phases, with a complete menu of tests available within a year of launch.* Clinical chemistry tests detect the presence of different chemicals in the blood and include tests such as sodium, potassium, glucose and calcium. Immunoassay methods use antibody or antigen recognition to detect complex molecules and provide information related to infectious diseases, hormone levels, cardiac risk factors, cancer, thyroid issues and therapeutic drugs.

About Alinity
Abbott's Alinity family of harmonized solutions is unprecedented in the diagnostics industry, working together to address the challenges of using multiple diagnostics platforms and simplify diagnostic testing. Alinity systems are designed to be more efficient – running more tests in less space, generating test results faster and minimizing human errors – while continuing to provide quality results.

The Alinity portfolio includes clinical chemistry, immunoassay, blood and plasma screening, point of care, hematology and molecular diagnostics, along with Abbott's AlinIQ—a first-of-its-kind, holistic suite of professional services that combines expertise with process analysis and informatics. Alinity is helping labs and hospital systems solve some of their most pressing challenges to deliver better patient care with fewer resources. More information is available at abbott.com/alinity.

About Abbott:
At Abbott, we're committed to helping you live your best possible life through the power of health. For more than 125 years, we've brought new products and technologies to the world -- in nutrition, diagnostics, medical devices and branded generic pharmaceuticals -- that create more possibilities for more people at all stages of life. Today, 74,000 of us are working to help people live not just longer, but better, in the more than 150 countries we serve.

Connect with us at www.abbott.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Abbott and on Twitter @AbbottNews and @AbbottGlobal. 

*Note: Local product availability may vary depending on geographic location.
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¹ Abbott Alinity ci Systems Operations Manual.

SOURCE Abbott