Männedorf, Switzerland, 9 March 2004: – Tecan, a leading player in the Life Sciences supply industry, today announced the introduction of Freedom EVO Clinical - a series of scalable and upgradeable automation platforms for clinical diagnostic laboratories. Freedom EVO Clinical is an open platform providing automation, performance and quality as required by diagnostics customers. The flexibility of Freedom EVO Clinical supports applications ranging from fully automated ELISA sample processing, blood typing and blood pooling up to sample distribution and molecular diagnostic testing. Freedom EVO Clinical has been designed to meet the latest regulatory requirements such as the In Vitro Diagnostic Directive 98/79/EC.

The new Freedom EVO Clinical is based on Tecan’s successful Freedom EVO platform introduced in July 2003. Based on common software and hardware architecture the platform offers deck sizes of 100, 150 and 200cm and soon of 75cm, designed to meet different user requirements. Carriers, racks, detection devices and washers may be easily integrated to provide the optimal configuration.

"Tecan will continuously extend the offerings, options and new technologies of its Freedom EVO Clinical platform for clinical diagnostic and blood bank applications, ” comments Rafael Alvarez, Marketing Manager of Diagnostics at Tecan. "Through its open and flexible design, owners of the Freedom EVO Clinical can easily implement new technologies and features in the future to evolve the quality, safety and performance of their robotic system - making Freedom EVO Clinical not only a simple solution for safe liquid handling, but also a particularly good investment in the long run. Tecan's clinical diagnostic customers will therefore constantly have access to the latest solutions for applications such as automation of enzyme immunoassays, sample preparation, sample distribution, blood typing and pooling, as well as a wide range of molecular diagnostic applications."

Meeting the highest safety and regulatory standards

The Freedom EVO Clinical platform was designed for compliance with worldwide regulatory requirements including the In Vitro Diagnostics Directive 98/79/EC and offers the highest standards of safety and performance. Freedom EVO Clinical provides a series of features to support patient and user safety. Large and lockable safety cover shields are standard. A continuous loading option permits the exchange of racks and carriers while the safety cover shields are closed and operation is in progress. Simultaneously, the associated loading interface monitors user access to the instrument.

For additional information, please contact:

Product information:

Cornelia Kegele
Manager Marketing Communications and Branding
Tel.: +41 (0)44 922 81 11
Fax: +41 (0)44 922 82 81
e-mail: cornelia.kegele@tecan.com
Internet:www.tecan.com

Editorial contact:

Northbank Communications
Stefan Platz
Account Manager
Tel.: +49 (0)89 2425 7311
e-mail: s.platz@northbankcommunications.com