BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) has expanded the BD COR™ System to include a new MX instrument for high-throughput molecular testing for infectious diseases. The new instrument and its first test for sexually transmitted infections have been CE marked to the IVD directive 98/79/EC.

The new MX instrument is the final piece of the BD COR™ System, which also includes a PX instrument that can prepare diagnostic samples by automating appropriate pre-analytical processing steps and a GX instrument that can leverage the BD Onclarity™ HPV Assay with extended genotyping to screen for HPV infections.

The MX instrument is built off the proven BD MAX™ System molecular PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology platform, a medium-throughput system typically found in hospital labs, and BD intends to leverage the BD MAX™ System menu of infectious disease tests to create assays that can be performed in high-throughput central reference labs on the BD COR™ System.

The first test available on the MX instrument is the BD CTGCTV2 for BD COR™ System, which is designed to use a single test to detect the three most prevalent non-viral sexually transmitted infections — Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC) and Trichomonas vaginalis (TV).