Abbott has recently been granted USFDA approval for its ABBOTT PRISM® hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and its PRISM® HBsAg Confirmatory test: tests that can be used by laboratory technicians in screening donated blood for HBsAg.

The PRISM system is being used in more than 30 countries and was recently approved for use in the United States with its first hepatitis B test, PRISM® HBcore that was introduced in October. Currently under USFDA review are additional hepatitis and retrovirus screening tests.

"We continue to focus on expanding our automated hepatitis testing menus across all of our diagnostic platforms," said Don Patton, vice president, global diagnostic commercial operations, Abbott.

"We also will continue to leverage our scientific expertise and understanding of viral hepatitis in introducing new diagnostic tests to support laboratory needs in infectious disease testing."

The PRISM system instruments automate the many of the manual testing procedures and steps currently used to screen blood by consolidating the tests into a single system. The PRISM System can run 160 samples per hour, making it possible to test more than 1,200 samples per eight-hour shift.

Read the full Abbott press release.