Becton, Dickinson and Company and Magnolia Medical Technologies, Inc. announced a co-exclusive commercial agreement aimed at helping U.S. hospitals reduce blood culture contamination to help improve testing accuracy and ultimately improve clinical outcomes. Under the agreement, BD and Magnolia Medical will both co-sell and co-market Magnolia Medical's Steripath(R) and Steripath(R) Micro Initial Specimen Diversion Device(R) platforms, complementing the BD specimen collection portfolio, including BD Vacutainer(R) push button and BD Vacutainer(R) UltraTouch(TM) blood collection sets. Steripath(R) is the only FDA 510(k)-cleared device platform specifically indicated to reduce blood culture contamination for sepsis testing accuracy.(i) The Steripath(R) Initial Specimen Diversion Devices divert and sequester the initial 1.5 to 2 mL of potentially contaminated blood from the sample and then collect blood for blood cultures.

The Steripath platform offers the only all-in-one devices clinically proven to meet the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute's (CLSI) new 1% blood culture contamination goal and new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to reduce blood culture contamination. The CDC guidelines specifically recommend use of Initial Specimen Diversion Devices [which] divert the initial 1 to 2 mL of potentially contaminated blood and then collect blood for blood culture.