The APAS Independence announced as a finalist for the Medical Design Excellence Awards 2018
1 June 2018

The APAS Independence, the product of Clever Culture Systems, the joint  venture between LBT Innovations and Hettich Holding Beteiligungs-und-Verwaltungs-GmbH (Germany), has been nominated as a finalist in theMedical Design Excellence Awards.

The Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) is the premier awards  program for the medtech industry, running since 1998, dedicated to recognising significant achievements in medical product design and engineering that improves the quality of healthcare delivery and accessibility.

Judging of the entries is conducted by an impartial panel of jurors made up of clinicians, engineers, and designers who carefully review all product submissions. Entries are scored based on five criteria:

• Design and Engineering Innovations

• Functional (User-Related) Innovations

• Benefits to Overall Healthcare

• Benefits to Patients

• Market Differentiation/Competitive Landscape

The APAS Independence is finalist in the category of testing and diagnostic products and systems in these awards. The APAS Independence is an innovative triage system that identifies non-significant microbiology culture plates and removes them from the workflow allowing microbiologists to focus on the significant plates requiring their expertise.

The APAS Independence is a stand-alone automated culture plate reading instrument that screens and sorts 200 Petri dishes per hour, producing consistent and reliable results. The APAS Independence creates efficiencies in laboratories and supports accelerated reporting of patient results to clinicians.

Attending the award ceremony representing both LBT Innovations and Clever Culture Systems will be Brent Barnes, CEO of LBT Innovations and Director of Clever Culture Systems and Peter Bradley, General Manager of Clever Culture Systems. “It’s exciting to be nominated for this distinguished award, which is the second time for LBT Innovations. In 2010 LBT was the gold winner for the PREVI Isola high-throughput specimen and agar plate management system. The LBT developed artificial intelligence APAS platform is a global first, with installations of the APAS Independence in Australia and Germany. I look forward to attending the ceremony in New York in June.”

“Being recognised by the Medical Design Excellence Awards is well-deserved international recognition of the contribution LBT Innovations and Clever Culture Systems is making to the industry. As their development and manufacturing partner, Planet Innovation is proud to support the global rollout of the APAS Independence.” – Ian MacFarlane, General Manager Planet Innovation, Clever Culture Systems engineering partner in this project. A recent presentation at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease 2018, detailed trials of the instrument at the St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne.

These trials showed that the APAS Independence performed with a high level of sensitivity and specificity and facilitated operational efficiencies in both specimen processing and culture reading. The European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease is the world’s largest gathering of clinical microbiologists and was an opportunity to showcase the APAS Independence to a global audience.

Clever Culture Systems is a joint venture between LBT Innovations (Australia) and Hettich Holding Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs-GmbH (Germany) with both parties providing valuable expertise to the project. Suppliers involved in the development of the APAS Independence also include Planet Innovations, Alphagate and Hydrix.