Fighting pathogens
distributors in Europe and Australia for its BAX system, an
automated testing platform for food-borne pathogens.
DuPont Qualicon has appointed UK-based company Oxoid as distributors in Europe and Australia for its BAX system, an automated testing platform for food-borne pathogens.
The BAX system uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR)technology to detect the presence or absence of salmonella, E.coli O157:H7, listeria species and Listeria monocytogenes in food andenvironmental samples.
Billed by DuPont Qualicon as "an easy and reliable way for food laboratoriesto perform highly accurate testing for implementing food safety programmes - all the necessaryreagents and a positive control are located in a pre-packaged tablet."
Asingle protocol is used for all pathogens, allowing users to test formultiple targets in a single run, up to 96 samples per batch.
The system is designed to deliverreproducible results based on DNA fragments that are unique to the target.Testing is undertaken using a closed-cap process, where all the necessaryprimers, polymerase enzymes and nucleotides are combined into single tabletspackaged in tubes.
"The automated BAX Systemwith its PCR technology and large batch processing capability allows foodcompanies to obtain definitive microbiological results within hours rather than days, enabling products to be released quickly and with totalconfidence.
The BAX System is an excellent complement to Oxoid's extensive productportfolio of manual systems for the culture, enumeration and detection offood-borne pathogens," said Patrick Roberts,vice-president of sales and marketing at Oxoid.
"We are very pleased to have Oxoid on board as our distributor in Europe andAustralia," added Jon Owen, global director of sales and marketing forDuPont Qualicon. "Withlocal offices and personnel in 10 locations throughout Europe, as well as inAustralia, Oxoid is ideally placed to offer customers a high level ofservice and technical support for the DuPont Qualicon product range," he added.
