bioMerieux Joins with the Rory Staunton Foundation to Host the First National Forum on Sepsis

bioMérieux, a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics, announces that it has joined with the Rory Staunton Foundation (RSF) in sponsoring the “First National Forum on Sepsis: Defeating the Killer,” on Sept. 17, 2014 in Washington D.C. The Forum is hosted by the RSF in conjunction with North Shore-LIJ Healthcare System. This historic event will bring together political leaders, including Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY), sepsis advocates including Konrad Reinhart, MD, chairman of the Global Sepsis Alliance and Dr. Carl Flatley, founder of the U.S. Sepsis Alliance, healthcare policy makers, including Thomas R. Frieden, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and industry leaders including bioMérieux.

This event is among the many leadership activities bioMérieux is engaged in during the month of September, which is Sepsis Awareness Month. During this time, bioMérieux is collaborating with sepsis advocates, including the sponsorship of the Sepsis Alliance’s third annual Celebration of Sepsis Heroes on September 18, 2014, and leading clinical experts to bring more attention to this often misunderstood condition.

“Undiagnosed and untreated sepsis killed our precious 12-year-old son Rory, on April 1, 2012,” say Rory’s parents and RSF founders, Orlaith and Ciaran Staunton. “Our mission is to increase sepsis awareness and save lives through early identification, diagnosis and treatment. We are pleased to work with bioMérieux on the Forum.”

Early detection and treatment will be the focal point of the Forum, particularly for patients who enter the ED with sepsis but whose symptoms are misdiagnosed. Guiding the presentations and discussion will be the recent Journal of the American Medical Association study: “Hospital Deaths in Patients with Sepsis from 2 Independent Cohorts.” This large retrospective analysis found that the fatality rate of sepsis is increasing. It also showed that patients who entered the hospital with sepsis were more likely to die from sepsis than those who acquired sepsis from a healthcare-associated infection (HAI).

“We are happy to join with the Rory Staunton Foundation, which has been remarkably effective in bringing about legislative change to improve sepsis management in the U.S.,” says Stefan Willemsen, president and CEO of bioMérieux Inc. “bioMérieux is willing to play a leading role to provide lab professionals with diagnostic solutions enabling them to early identify and monitor of sepsis for better patient outcome.”

bioMérieux is the maker of the VIDAS® B•R•A•H•M•S PCTTM (procalcitonin) assay, cleared by the FDA in 2007. It is intended to aid in the risk assessment of critically ill patients on their first day of ICU admission for progression to severe sepsis and septic shock and is an important part of leading hospitals’ protocols for sepsis. bioMérieux also produces instruments for the rapid detection of potentially harmful bacteria, such as those that can produce severe infections that lead to sepsis. These instruments include the BacT/ALERT® 3D which can detect organisms via blood culture, the new VITEK® MS mass spectrometry instrument for rapid microbial identification and the VITEK® 2 for rapid identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing (ID/AST). The combination of BacT/ALERT® 3D, VITEK® MS, VITEK® 2, and bioMérieux’s Myla® middleware is among the industry’s most comprehensive ID/AST solutions and serves to address the growing needs of today’s laboratories.

Source: bioMérieux