Thursday, July 28, 2011

AACC Meeting Round Up

Each Year Kalorama Information attends the American Association for Clinical Chemistry meeting. This year it was held in Atlanta, GA. and a team from Kalorama Information attended and talked to hundreds of exhbitiors.

Besides being wowed by the amount of roads with the name 'Peachtree' and the great food that the city offers, we found the following noteworthy about AACC 2011.:
• Vitamin D deficiency testing was heavily pushed at AACC and its an area, along with several other 'nutranostic' categories that we expect to see growth in.

• The prevalence of IT sections in all the major players’ booths (Siemens, Roche, Abbott, Beckman, etc.). There appeared to be a push there for these peripheral services from add-on automation to informatics and IT integration etc., perhaps as a way to cover for their lack of any revolutionary advancements in the rest of their product portfolios.

• I believe there were 17 companies showing from China. Even two or three years ago, Mindray was the major company represented; now there are lots.

• We were surprised to note the absence of bioMerieux from the exhibit hall this year. As some may recall, they have almost always had a significant presence at AACC. Not sure what impacted the decision.

• Some interesting little cell diagnostics companies showing new circulating tumor cell methods (some employing techniques that do not use flow cytometry). I thought Rarecyte (www.rarecyt.com) was a fascinating young company to watch.


• Danaher seems to be keeping the brand identity for their purchased companies and not immediately incorporating them into the Danaher name ala Siemens. Beckman Coulter, for instance still had a large presence under its own name.