Hologic, a leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of high-quality diagnostic products, medical imaging systems and products for gynecological surgery specializing in gynaecology, announced the launch of the Tomcat, a new instrument for pre-analytical sample processing, announced in Europe. The Tomcat is an IVD-CE marked, fully automated universal platform for simplifying the preanalytical sample processing. This is achieved by keeping inefficient and error-prone steps are eliminated during manual aliquoting of analysis samples.

"The full automation of the Tomcat provides a reduction in workload during manual transfer of samples represents and assists laboratories with low to high sample throughput to streamline work flow and increase productivity, "said Dr Hilja Ibert, vice president and general manager,  International Diagnostics Solutions, at Hologic. "In addition to our product line in the field of molecular test systems of Tomcat supports our goal to provide clients with more freedom and control over their work schedule."

The design of the Tomcat principles of lean management were included to create by automating an added value. The Tomcat takes several steps working up thin-layer cytology samples from opening and closing the test tube over the vortexing, and incubating Aliquot to positioning of the samples in a rack for direct further processing. The unit also carries out a positive balance bar code for each sample and is able to add, if necessary reagents. By replacing recurring manual steps of Tomcat can help laboratories to reduce time-consuming activities to make work processes more efficient and to improve the quality of the results.

The Tomcat standardises the process of Aliquotierens, can handle several different types of samples simultaneously and is designed for continuous loading and unloading of samples and consumables. The design of the instrument is aligned with minimised risk of cross-contamination, requires limited manual intervention and has an intuitive touchscreen user interface on.

The Tomcat is the latest addition to the product family of automated molecular test systems from Hologic. These include the Panther system, a fully automated molecular testing platform with the possibility of continuous and direct access to samples and the flexibility to perform a wide variety of testing procedures, and the Tigris-System, the first fully automated molecular test system for high sample throughput in large-scale laboratories.