QMS Quinidine Assay

For therapeutic drug monitoring

Beckman Coulter Inc, Fullerton, Calif, has expanded its therapeutic drug-monitoring test menu to include QMS® Quinidine. The assay measures concentrations of the drug Quinidine in human plasma or serum. Quinidine is a major antiarrhythmic agent used to treat and prevent arrhythmias, and careful monitoring of the drug is important due to its narrow therapeutic index and similarity in patient response to subtherapeutic and toxic amounts of the drug. Reagents and calibrators are liquid and ready-to-use, which eliminates the need for mixing, hydrating, or prediluting reagents before testing. When used in conjunction with a UniCel® or Synchron® clinical system, the assay provides timely TDM results. It is manufactured by Thermo Fisher Scientific and distributed by Beckman Coulter.

Beckman Coulter Inc
(714) 993-8432
www.beckmancoulter.com

VAP Test

Cholesterol test

The VAP cholesterol test from Atherotech Inc, Birmingham, Ala, helps physicians pinpoint effective risk-lowering treatments for people with a family history or an existing condition of diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease—or who are already taking cholesterol-lowering medication. The cholesterol profile complies with updated National Cholesterol Education Program ATP III recommendations for LDL measurement, and the advanced lipid profile routinely reports all three lipoprotein parameters (LDL, non-HDL, and apoB), considered necessary by the American Diabetes Association and American College of Cardiology expert-consensus guidelines. The test directly measures LDL, which doesn’t require fasting for accurate measurement. The Diabetes and Combined Lipid Therapy Regimen study used the VAP Test to measure the effects of simvastatin alone, fenofibrate alone, and the combination of both on lipid subparticles in 300 patients (randomized) with Type 2 diabetes without existing heart disease. Researchers found that combining statin therapy with a fibrate is an effective way to correct an adverse cardiovascular risk profile in individuals with diabetes and mixed dyslipidemia (elevated LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels combined with decreased levels of HDL cholesterol). The results of the 12-week, single-center, double-blind, placebo-controlled study were recently published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Atherotech Inc
(877) 901-8510
www.thevaptest.com

femtoLucent Plus

Helps detect hard-to-detect low-abundance proteins

G-Biosciences/Genotech, St Louis, offers femto™Lucent Plus, a femtogram level-sensitive Western blotting/immunodetection system that helps detect even hard-to-detect low-abundance proteins. The system is based on a formulation of luminol and 1,2 dioxetane supersensitive detection reagent and a proprietary combination of a nonanimal protein-blocking agent (NAP-BLOCKER™) and enhanced washing buffers (femto-TBST™) to help ensure low background and high signal-to-background ratio. Optional horseradish peroxidase or alkaline phosphatase-conjugated secondary antibodies against mouse, rabbit, human, rat, and goat are offered for a chemiluminescence detection system.

G-Biosciences/Genotech
(314) 991-6034
www.GBiosciences.com