LONDON, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- North West London Pathology (NWLP), hosted by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced today that they signed a $252 million managed equipment services contract for the supply of all analytical equipment and consumables, including Abbott's Alinity™ ci and Alinity h series diagnostics instruments as well as their professional services and informatics solutions known as AlinIQ.

The contract was the subject of a detailed and competitive procurement process conducted by NWLP. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust and the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust consolidated their pathology services into NWLP earlier this year to better manage demand, standardize operations, improve value for money and make use of new technologies.

Stephen Snewin, managing director of NWLP, said: "NWLP aims to provide an innovative and sustainable pathology service which delivers outstanding quality for our patients and clinicians. After a highly competitive process involving multiple diagnostic equipment manufacturers, NWLP is extremely excited to be working with Abbott, which supports our vision of increased efficiency and transformation across six major sites in North West London using the latest technology."

The partnership is expected to manage 26 million tests per year and currently holds 6 percent of the total pathology market in the UK.

"Abbott is delighted to provide NWLP with personalized Alinity and AlinIQ solutions to help them navigate the challenges of an evolving healthcare system," said Mike Clayton, managing director, Northern Europe, for Abbott's diagnostics business. "Through our partnership, we will equip NWLP to help maximize productivity, drive faster delivery of test results and provide the critical information needed for clinical decisions – with the goal of helping the Trust improve patient outcomes."

The hospitals included within this partnership are: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which comprises St Mary's Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital and the Western Eye Hospital; Chelsea & Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust, which comprises Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital; and Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which comprises Hillingdon Hospital and Mount Vernon Hospital.

About Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust:
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is one of the largest hospital Trusts in England, providing acute and specialist healthcare for a population of nearly two million people. The Trust has five hospitals – Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea, St Mary's and The Western Eye – as well as community services.

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 Alinity c (clinical chemistry), Alinity i (immunoassay), Alinity s (blood and plasma screening), i-STAT Alinity (point of care), Alinity h (hematology) and Alinity m (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, 94,000 of us are working to help people live not just longer, but better, in the more than 150 countries we serve.

SOURCE Abbott