Meridian Bioscience (NASDAQ:VIVO) has reached a deal to offer discounted prices for two molecular diagnostics tests to members of one of the nation’s largest healthcare group purchasing organizations.
Cincinnati-area Meridian hopes the deal with Premier, a hospital-owned quality improvement alliance that boasts more than 2,500 hospital members, adds a spark to sales of two molecular diagnostic tests based on its illumigene platform, according to a statement.
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The illumigene product line is key to Meridian’s future as more customers look to molecular diagnostics, a means of analyzing the makeup of an organism at the genetic level.
The molecular tests Meridian is selling under the deal with Premier are for group B streptococcus, a bacterial infection that can be passed to a woman’s baby during delivery, and C. difficile, which is a bacterium that can cause diarrhea and, in severe cases, a life-threatening inflammation of the colon.
Premier has similar agreements in place with Cepheid and with GeneOhm Sciences for molecular tests for the same two types of bacteria, a spokesman for the North Carolina-based company said.
In it most recent fiscal year, ended Sept. 30, 2011, Meridian’s sales grew 12 percent to about $160 million.
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Last month, Meridian received Australian regulatory approval to begin selling its illumigene group B strep test in that country.
