Edison Awards Recognize Ortho Clinical Diagnostics’ VITROS® NEPHROCHECK® Test for Best New Product

Newswise — RARITAN, N.J. – Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (Ortho), a global leader of in vitro diagnostics, today announced that it has been selected for a gold-level Edison Award™ in the Best New Product Awards™ category for its VITROS^® NEPHROCHECK^® Test. VITROS NEPHROCHECK is the first fully automated risk assessment tool for predicting acute kidney injury (AKI), a serious and potentially fatal condition affecting hospital patients worldwide. 

Edison Award winners are selected as the "best of the best" by 3,000 of the world's top senior business executives, academics and innovation professionals.

“Preventing AKI is one of the biggest unmet clinical and economic needs in health care globally. Before the NephroCheck^® test, clinicians could only rely on lagging indicator tools – but these only detect AKI after kidney damage has already occurred and may be irreversible. Outcomes studies and quality initiatives worldwide show that the NEPHROCHECK Test, combined with early therapeutic intervention, can dramatically improve outcomes and reduce costs,” said Robert Yates, chief operating officer of Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. “This honor underscores our commitment to excellence and innovation in the tools we bring to clinical laboratories around the world."

AKI, the sudden loss of kidney function, can develop without warning and potentially lead to kidney failure and death. Known as a silent killer, AKI is as common and twice as deadly as heart attack^1,2, causing as many as two-million deaths annually, worldwide.³ AKI is preceded by renal stress, which is identified by the NephroCheck test. Renal stress is often caused by major surgery, drugs, toxins, serious infection or chronic illness and trauma. Up to 50 percent of patients in intensive care develop some stage of AKI.⁴

Published randomized controlled trials have shown that utilizing the NephroCheck test to identify patients at high risk of developing AKI and implement preventative intervention led to a 66 percent reduction in moderate and severe AKI following non-cardiac surgery and a 45 percent reduction after cardiac surgery. In addition to the health outcomes, patients in the intervention group spent fewer days in the intensive care unit, and had a reduction in length of hospital stay by five days.⁵

Ortho: Recognized for Excellence and Innovation

Over the last two years, Ortho has been broadly recognized for customer service, innovation, quality, safety, sustainability and brand renovation with several awards. 

• The Ortho Care™ service and support program has been the highest-ranked original equipment manufacturer by ServiceTrak™ for overall service performance in the chemistry and immunoassay market segments for two years running (2016-17).
• Ortho has received two International Stevie Awards – a 2017 award for Sales and Customer Service and a 2016 award for Re-Branding and Brand Renovation in support of Ortho's brand work and articulating its story as an independent company.  
• Ortho was honored with an Innovation Award by members of Premier, Inc., a health care improvement company that unites an alliance of approximately 3,600 U.S. hospitals and 120,000 other providers around the goal of transforming health care.
• The Edison Award™ for Global Product Innovation in 2017 recognized the ORTHO VISION^® Analyzer, a fully automated immunohematology system that tests blood for compatibility with patients receiving blood transfusion. 
• The ORTHO VISION Analyzer also received two Global Business Excellence Awards. 
• Most recently, Ortho was recognized as one of The Economic Times Best Asian Healthcare Brands for 2017. 

About VITROS NEPHROCHECK

Ortho’s VITROS NEPHROCHECK Test detects two key urinary biomarkers, TIMP-2 and IGFBP-7, first discovered by Astute Medical, which indicate risk of AKI in intensive care unit patients. It is a simple urine test that provides lab results in 16 minutes, allowing clinicians to assess the risk of AKI and proactively treat at-risk patients. The NephroCheck^® test is enhanced by the proprietary technologies and benefits only available on Ortho's VITROS^® systems. 

Ortho developed VITROS NEPHROCHECK and launched it in CE Mark countries in 2017. The product is currently not available on the VITROS® System in the U.S.

About Ortho Clinical Diagnostics

Ortho Clinical Diagnostics is a global leader of in vitro diagnostics serving the clinical laboratory and immunohematology communities. Across hospitals, hospital networks, blood banks and labs in more than 125 countries and territories, Ortho's high-quality products and services enable health care professionals to make better-informed treatment decisions. For the immunohematology community, Ortho's blood typing products help ensure every patient receives blood that is safe, the right type and the right unit. Ortho brings sophisticated testing technologies, automation, information management and interpretation tools to clinical laboratories around the world to help them run more efficiently and effectively and improve patient care. Ortho's purpose is to improve and save lives with diagnostics, and it does that by reimagining what's possible. This is what has defined Ortho for more than 75 years, and it's what drives Ortho forward. For more information, visit www.orthoclinicaldiagnostics.com. 

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Astute Medical®, the AM logo, ASTUTE140^®, NephroCheck^®, the NephroCheck^® logo, and AKIRISK^® are registered trademarks of Astute Medical, Inc. in the United States. For information regarding trademarks and other intellectual property applicable to this product, including international trademarks, please see AstuteMedical.com/about/intellectualproperty. 

© Ortho Clinical Diagnostics 2018

Sources:

¹ Ronco C, Ricci Z. Critical Care. 2013;17:117.

² Kellum JA, et al. Nephrol Dial Transplant. 2016;31(1):16-22.

³ Ali T, Khan I, Simpson W, et al. Incidence and Outcomes in Acute Kidney Injury: a Comprehensive Population-Based Study. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2007;18(4):1292-1298.

⁴ Mandelbaum T, Scott D, et al. Outcome of Critically ill Patients With Acute Kidney Injury Using the AKIN Criteria. Crit Care Med. 2011;39(12)2659-2664.

⁵ Göcze I, Jauch D, Götz M, et al. Biomarker-guided intervention to prevent acute kidney injury after major surgery: the prospective randomized BigpAK Study. Ann Surg. Published online August 2017.