07/18/06

Abbott has received approval from the FDA for its ABBOTT PRISM® hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and its PRISM HBsAg Confirmatory test. These tests can be used by laboratory technicians to screen donated blood for HBsAg.

Used in more than 30 countries, the PRISM system was recently approved for use in the US. The first hepatitis B test, PRISM HBcore, was introduced in October. Additional hepatitis and retrovirus screening tests are currently under FDA review.

“We continue to focus on expanding our automated hepatitis testing menus across all of our diagnostic platforms,” says Don Patton, vice president of global diagnostic commercial operations at Abbott. “We also will continue to leverage our scientific expertise and understanding of viral hepatitis in introducing new diagnostic tests to support laboratory needs in infectious disease testing.”