March 06, 2007 - Sysmex America Signs Agreement with Premier

Mundelein, Illinois, March 2, 2007 – Sysmex America, Inc., a world leader in clinical laboratory design, systemization and solutions announced today that the company has signed a three-year contract agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners, LLP. The contract, PP-LA-203, provides Premier member-hospitals and healthcare sites access to Sysmex hematology analyzers, automation, reagents, consumables and services. The contract is effective April 1, 2007. Premier Inc. is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to serving 1,700 hospitals and 44,000 other healthcare sites. The Sysmex portfolio of products and services has been a vendor service offering for Premier customers since 1998.

“We are very pleased that the quality and reliability of our Sysmex products and services offerings have been acknowledged by the signing of our second contract with Premier, a company that has received the Malcolm Baldrige Award, the nation’s highest honor for quality. We look forward to serving Premier member-hospitals and allied healthcare facilities as they continue to face the challenges of a changing healthcare environment,” said John Kershaw, President, Sysmex America, Inc. Sysmex America, recipient of the 2006 Pinnacle Award for supplier performance that meets and exceeds the expectations of Premier and its members, is the first hematology vendor to be bestowed this honor.

“Sysmex products and services have been found to meet the quality and pricing standards that Premier has set forth on behalf of its members, who seek to improve their patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of their care,”said John Biggers, Group VP, Sourcing, Premier.

In an independent survey of more than 1,600 randomly chosen clinical laboratory health care professionals from varying hospital sizes across the country, Sysmex users have ranked Sysmex hematology analyzers as the best in the industry for instrument reliability. Sysmex earns this ranking for the seventh consecutive year. This data was presented in the annual IMV ServiceTrak™ survey. IMV provides comprehensive studies of the level of market information and customer satisfaction for major manufacturers in a variety of markets, including clinical diagnostics and diagnostic imaging.