Public Health Agency Expands STARLIMS License To Cover Clinical Testing

August 31, 2009 (FinancialWire) — STARLIMS Technologies Ltd., a provider of laboratory information management systems, or LIMS, announced an expansion to its original contract with the public health agency of a major U.S. city.

The new agreement provides an enterprise license for all of the agency’s divisions, extending STARLIMS to the city’s health providers to streamline specimen registration, tracking and reporting. The expanded licensing agreement increases the total contract value to approximately $1.3 million, including licenses for the company’s software, first year maintenance and professional services.

The original agreement of May 2009 provided STARLIMS licensing for two of the agency’s four public health divisions, while the extended agreement covers all four divisions, including accelerated deployment in the divisions of Microbiology and of Virology and Immunology. The agency’s laboratories are responsible for testing more than 400,000 specimens annually. One of the drivers for this expansion was STARLIMS’s proven success helping public health agencies to meet the unique challenges of H1N1 influenza.

“We are extremely gratified to see that the public health informatics expertise we have developed over years of collaboration with federal, state and local agencies will be fully utilized in this major metropolitan area,” said Jeff Ferguson, COO of STARLIMS. “Over the past months, we have collaborated in an intensely focused fashion with various public health agencies to help our partners respond rapidly and effectively to the H1N1 influenza virus. The tools we have developed will now be available across the public health divisions of this large metropolis, thanks to the expansion of our licensing agreement.”

STARLIMS has proven success collaborating with public health partners in H1N1 response, partnering closely with agencies such as the Louisiana Office of Public Health, the Wyoming Department of Health, the Tennessee Department of Health and the San Diego County Public Health Department. In a related initiative, STARLIMS is helping develop a standard influenza testing module, as a major component of the Laboratory Response Network for Bioterrorism of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . This collaboration involves not only the CDC and STARLIMS, but also state public health agencies in Indiana, California and Illinois.

STARLIMS public health solutions provide the infrastructure for timely sharing of laboratory information among state and federal public health agencies — which is crucial for effective response to emerging public health threats, including outbreaks of infectious diseases. STARLIMS fully supports the guidelines set forth by the CDC and the United States Association of Public Health Laboratories .

STARLIMS’s enterprise-level information system brings together all public health laboratory activities into a single platform, offering comprehensive reporting, surveillance and networking capabilities. Advanced web-based capabilities are enhanced by specialized tools and wizards, resulting in flexible solutions that enable public health labs to manage large amounts of data while also meeting stringent accreditation requirements.