Maximizing the value of pharmaceutical sciences through "Diagnostics"
From pre-treatment to post-treatment monitoring. Diagnostics using specimen in the clinical setting play an important role in the early detection and the follow-up of treatment in various diseases such as malignant tumors, infectious diseases, and obstetric disorders. Sekisui Medical hopes that many people will obtain appropriate diagnoses through diagnostics and gain the best treatment efficiency. With this in mind, we are daily efforts towards our hopes.
Clinical diagnostics, which are essential for pharmaceutical sciences, are performed in various situations, including diagnosis for prevention, diagnosis of pathological conditions, selection of treatment policies, measurement of medication efficiencies and prevention of deterioration during treatment, and monitoring after treatment. Diagnostics using specimen are essential for knowing the condition of each patient and choosing the best treatment. In Our Business of diagnostics using specimen, we provide automated analyzers and diagnostic reagents to clinical institutions worldwide. Especially in the segment of the coagulation testing, we have built a trusted relationship with our customers and have contributed to the pharmaceutical sciences in this segment for more than 20 years by providing analyzers and reagents for the measurement of coagulation factors and their breakdown products in the blood.
What is a diagnostics for coagulation?
The diagnostics for coagulation, one of our strengths, is intended to measure the activity of protein breakdown products in the blood and substances involved in the clotting process. It is mainly used to monitor the presence and severity of blood clots. This diagnostics is also used to determine the condition of the body such as bleeding that does not stop before surgery, or to monitor therapeutic drugs.
Among the indicators of proteins indicating thrombosis formation, FDP and D-dimer have been considered difficult to measure due to their complex molecular composition. They have a wide concentration range due to differences between patients and changes in pathological conditions. Since the diagnostics for coagulation is considered the first step in understanding a patient's condition and characteristics and determining future treatment guidelines, analyzers and reagents are required to provide fast and accurate results.
Automation allows us to contribute to efficiency in clinical setting and quality of testing for patients
Test results may vary depending on when the test was performed, even for the same patient. This means that diagnostics must be absolutely reliable to provide stable results. For approximately 30 years, Sekisui Medical has worked for automate diagnostics by partnership with instrument manufacturers , while producing reagents for automated analyzers and testing. The latest analyzer allows us to measure samples 400 times per hour, which significantly increases the measurement efficiency, reduces burden on clinical institutions' staff, accuracy and safety of the diagnostics have also greatly improved. For more than 20 years since their introduction, our products have helped improve the efficiency and quality of diagnostics in many clinical settings.
Meeting customer needs and creating a new value
Why have we been able to leverage our strengths in the segment of diagnostics for coagulation? The reason is that, from the beginning of the development phase, we have always considered what performance would be beneficial to patients and easy to use for clinical staff, and thoroughly developed our products. Our work is not completed when we deliver instruments and reagents to clinical institutions; the true value of our work is tested when users use our products. We, therefore, focus on customer support after the delivery of products and strive every day to respond to their inquiries and consultations to respond to their questions and requests.
In 2020, we established a company-wide New Product Development Planning Committee to cross-functionally link customer needs and opinions into the development for all products, including those in the segment of coagulation testing.
Leveraging our strengths to create new value
Since the time when Sekisui Medical introduced automated products 20 years ago, the coagulation testing segment has evolved significantly. Nowadays, we are required to deliver products which provide not only the faster and more accurate test result, but also provide values that go beyond that. We take on a variety of challenges to leverage the resources and expertise we have accumulated so far. Our company helps to reduce the burden on clinical settings by improving the efficiency of not only the tests themselves, but also their management. To make the results easier to obtain, we have also released a simple desktop analyzer for medical practitioners that can display numerical results after the blood is dripped and placed into the analyzer. This analyzer can be used in a variety of clinical institutions including the hospital bedside and the medical practitioner's office. In addition to the existing diagnostics, we are working to address unmet medical needs in order to develop diagnostics that can test for rare diseases.