Roche Diagnostics again wins GPO contract

Amerinet contracts with Roche for chemistry, immunoassay, urinalysis and automation

Roche Diagnostics today announced the signing of three contracts with Amerinet, one of the nation’s leading healthcare purchasing organizations. The contracts for chemistry, immunoassay, urinalysis and automation give Roche Diagnostics a preferred-vendor status with Amerinet’s more than 22,000 members.

The contracts provide Roche Diagnostics with continued access to Amerinet members. Using the power of bulk purchasing, Amerinet negotiates savings for its members on key products and services.

The new contracts establish a long-term relationship between Roche Diagnostics and Amerinet in the areas of clinical chemistry and immunochemistry testing, automation, and urinalysis. The contracts represent a three-year term through April 2010. Roche Diagnostics’ first three-year contract with Amerinet ended in April 2007.

“These contracts indicate that Roche Diagnostics’ products continue to provide strong value to Amerinet hospitals,” said Andy Thomson, Senior Vice President for Centralized Diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics. “We offer quality products and platforms that meet the needs of Amerinet’s member hospitals—whether they operate mid-volume laboratories or central core labs.”

Amerinet was especially interested in Roche Diagnostics’ ability to deliver a single solution for mid-volume laboratories, linking pre-analytics, analytics and connectivity options in the form of the cobas 6000 analyzer series, which also combines chemistry and immunoassay tests with the Integrated MODULAR® ANALYTICS systems.

The clinical chemistry contract includes heart disease tests ProBNP and troponin T, thrombosis test D-Dimer and free Prostate-Specific Antigen, which tests for prostate cancer. Therapeutic drug monitoring and drugs-of-abuse assays are also part of the contract.

About Roche and the Roche Diagnostics Division

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As a supplier of innovative products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche is a world leader in diagnostics, the leading supplier of drugs for cancer and transplantation and a market leader in virology. In 2006 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 33.3 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 8.7 billion Swiss francs. Roche employs roughly 75,000 people in 150 countries and has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai  Roche’s Diagnostics Division offers a uniquely broad product portfolio and supplies a wide array of innovative testing products and services to researchers, physicians, patients, hospitals and laboratories world-wide. For further information, please visit our website www.roche.com.

About Amerinet Inc.

Amerinet partners with health care providers to improve operating margins through a comprehensive line of strategic resources designed to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and create new revenue streams. Supported by a team of clinical and data experts, and a comprehensive portfolio of purchasing contracts, Amerinet identifies immediate cost-savings and provides a choice of quality, competitively priced products and services supplied by industry leaders.  Based in St. Louis, with offices in Salt Lake City, Providence, R.I., and Warrendale, Pa., Amerinet serves more than 22,000 acute and non-acute health care providers nationwide. To learn more, visit www.amerinet-gpo.com.

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