BD will begin working with Babson Diagnostics to help bring its lab-quality device for collecting blood from capillaries into pharmacies and retail settings.
The small-volume device, currently under development at BD, will be paired with Babson’s automated sample handling equipment and its upcoming diagnostic tests. The new long-term strategic agreement builds upon ongoing collaborations between the two companies in place since 2017.
“Patient expectations for health care are evolving, and patients are demanding care in more convenient settings,” BD’s president of life sciences, Patrick Kaltenbach, said in a statement. “With our specimen management innovations, we hope to revolutionize diagnostic testing to meet patient expectations with laboratory-quality tests that can be performed with small blood samples that do not require venipuncture.”
BD’s new specimen collection device will be designed for healthcare settings without trained phlebotomists, such as retail pharmacies as well as doctor’s offices, urgent care centers and nursing facilities—for both physician-ordered and self-ordered tests. Samples would then be collected and analyzed at a centralized CLIA laboratory.
“BD has been a leader in blood collection technology with a long history of global innovation,” said Babson CEO Eric Olson. “The technology they are developing is critical to Babson’s mission of making diagnostic blood testing more convenient and accessible without sacrificing accuracy or cost.”
Both companies said they are conducting clinical studies on their respective devices in real-world settings, while BD will shoulder the future regulatory submissions to the FDA and other international regulatory bodies.