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Microcheck, Inc. Combats Frequent Weather-Related Power Outages With Franek Technologies Power Protection System

Posted on: Monday, 25 June 2007, 09:05 CDT

In a good month, Microcheck, Inc., a leading microbial identification laboratory, suffers only two power outages, and again, that's a good month. Frequent outages are caused by severe weather, including snow, ice, and windstorms, in Microcheck's location in the one-stoplight town of Northfield, Vermont. Since even a power flicker as short as 30 milliseconds may result in equipment damage, sample loss, and lost productive time, Dr. Mike Sinclair, CEO/Laboratory Director of Microcheck, proactively installed a certified Franek Technologies power protection system with battery back-up to protect the laboratory's $150,000 Applied Biosystems (ABI) PRISM(R) 3130xl Genetic Analyzer. According to Dr. Sinclair, if the laboratory's Genetic Analyzer were to go down due to unconditioned power, the laboratory simply would not be able to keep up with client demand to identify hundreds of samples per week. Since the overall success of the company is directly linked to its capability to process samples 24/7, Microcheck's investment in the Franek Technologies power protection system was determined to be crucial.

As experts in bacterial, fungal, yeast, and actinomycete identification, environmental monitoring, and microbiology testing, Microcheck, which is FDA-regulated; A2LA certified as a microbial proficiency test provider; and ISO/IEC 17025 compliant; supports quality control programs for the pharmaceutical, biomedical device, and related industries. In the pharmaceutical/biomedical device arena, which represents the lion's share of Microcheck's business, one of the many things that Microcheck does is to ensure that critical human medical devices, such as hip and knee replacements, have been adequately sterilized and therefore safe for transplant into patients. Biological indicators (BIs), such as the spores of certain bacteria, are packaged and inserted with the load of items to be sterilized by steam, ethylene oxide, or ultraviolet light. The BIs are placed throughout the load but especially in places determined to be the most difficult for sterilant penetration. Following sterilization the BIs are transferred from the packaging into media which will support their growth under proper incubation conditions. If growth of the BIs occurs, this may indicate that the sterilization process did not kill the BI spores. Growth may also occur if there was a medium contaminant or post sterilization contamination. Microcheck's role upon receipt of these sterility failure samples from its global client base is to determine if the organisms growing in the media are vegetative cells that grew from the spores of the BIs not killed by the sterilization process or contaminants that may have been introduced. Microcheck's Genetic Analyzer makes it possible to determine the same day, if the need should arise, whether growth was due to inadequate sterilization and thus the materials that underwent sterilization should not be transplanted into patients.

Since, according to Dr. Sinclair, ABI only recommends Franek Technologies as a power protection provider, he contacted the company for a customized power protection solution with battery back-up. Without the certified instrumentation-specific power protection, Dr. Sinclair estimates that each power outage could result in a loss of $5,000 per outage in damage to the lasers in the Genetic Analyzer alone. Since the Microcheck laboratory experiences an average of two outages per month, the cost of unprotected instrumentation is significant and this doesn't include sample loss or lost productive time as a result of the outages. When the inevitable power outages do occur, the Genetic Analyzer is able to complete the run in progress and then initiate a managed shutdown of the instrument and the computer system, thereby protecting all instrumentation as well as the integrity of the samples.

"I sleep better at night knowing that our ABI Genetic Analyzer will run 24/7 regardless of what's going on weather-wise outside our laboratory," explains Dr. Sinclair. "It would be irresponsible to our clients not to have a Franek Technologies' unit supporting the Genetic Analyzer as the risks are just too great and directly tied to our bottom line. Our investment in this level of protection is insurance and an absolute necessity for Microcheck."

"We are very proud of our relationship with Microcheck," states Raymond L. Hecker, VP/General Manager, Franek Technologies, Inc. "We like being associated with leading-edge organizations who have selected our products to help them advance science, public health, and national security. We look forward to working with Microcheck for years to come."

Franek Technologies, Inc. specializes in providing Laboratory Productivity/Protection Systems (LPS/UPS) for analytical, diagnostics, forensic, life-science, pharmaceutical and biotechnology instrumentation systems applications. It's certified uninterruptible battery backup power sources for laboratory and instrumentation applications protect over $3 billion in laboratory assets worldwide. The company's power engineers have developed LPS/UPS products for over 1,500 instrumentation applications, from more than 100 manufacturers, to meet US Government power requirements. For more information, call (800) 326-6480 or visit www.franek.com.

 Contacts:  Jeanna Sanchez JCS Public Relations Tel: +1 (760) 295-4166 Email Contact  Ray Hecker Franek Technologies, Inc. Tel: +1 (800) 326-6480 Email Contact

SOURCE: Franek Technologies, Inc.

Source: MARKET WIRE

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