In recent months the team at Kurin, Inc., manufacturer of the only FDA cleared blood culture diversion device, has received a wealth of clinical data from early adopter hospitals. In May, Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, NY, published a 56% overall reduction in contaminated blood cultures inclusive of all cultures drawn with or without the device. When a Kurin set was used in the blood collection, Crouse saw an 89% reduction in contaminated blood cultures. A month later, Bayfront Health presented a 54% overall reduction and a 90% reduction in contaminated cultures when Kurin was used. In both cases, the hospitals were already below the 3% national contamination rate benchmark when they began using Kurin. By addressing skin contaminants using Kurin’s passive diversion technology, the hospitals drove their overall contamination rates down to 0.8% and 1.2% respectively.

Commenting on the results, Kurin CEO Bob Rogers said, “For a decade, hospitals have been striving to achieve 3% contamination rates per industry guidance, yet it is now clear that 3% is far too lax a goal. With best practice compliance and specimen diversion for every collection, clinical data establishes that hospitals can maintain contamination rates of 1% or less, and save significantly by reducing unneeded treatment.” Indeed, Crouse and Bayfront reported annual cost savings of $185,000 and $430,000, respectively.

The founders of Kurin are familiar with what it takes to change clinical practice. As the creators of Curos^TMdisinfecting port protectors, now a product and trademark of 3M, the team radically changed infusion port disinfection protocol leading to improvements in catheter related bloodstream infection rates across the country. Today passive disinfection caps have become the standard of care for hospitals to reduce their bloodstream infections.

“The parallels between Curos and Kurin are striking,” said Rogers. “In both cases, the success of the intervention comes down to caregiver compliance. If you use the technology, you will see positive results.” However, commonly used practices that deviate from the two-venipuncture standard can introduce points of contamination that compromise blood culture results. Rogers continued, “In most cases, the clinician does not know that their technique is increasing the chance of contamination, nor do they know what the downstream effects of that false positive culture might be. Therefore, Kurin is creating and sharing educational resources that raise awareness of blood culture contamination and support collection best practices.”

As part of this effort, Kurin is releasing a 5-minute documentary film entitled Cry Wolf to illuminate the prevalence of blood culture contamination, the clinical impact on patients, and the steep associated costs for hospitals. Cry Wolf debuts in partnership with CAP Today during the month of September 2018. View Cry Wolf at www.captodayonline.com starting September 18th. Additional resources may be found at www.betterbloodcultures.com, including the results described above, an annotated bibliography of studies on the topic, an educational video, blood culture contamination facts, and a listing of current industry standards.

About Kurin, Inc.
Kurin Corporation, a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), is focused on the design, development, manufacture, marketing, and sale of products that help healthcare providers reduce contaminated blood cultures. San Diego-based Kurin has received FDA 510(k) market clearance. For more information, visit the website at www.kurin.com.

San Diego, CA – Kurin Inc., the inventor and manufacturer of 510(k)-cleared Kurin® blood culture collection sets, announced today that the United States Patent Office allowed its patent application and has issued U.S. Patent No. 10,010,282. The Kurin blood culture collection set is a replacement for traditional collection sets, introducing technology to divert skin contaminants while preserving the standard blood culture collection technique for clinicians.

Like regular blood culture sets, Kurin sets include a butterfly needle for venipuncture or luer connection to a peripheral catheter and a needle for filling a culture bottle. Unique to Kurin is the Kurin Lock™ blood sequestration device, which includes a chamber for diversion of the initial aliquot of blood that often contains skin contaminants from the venipuncture site. After diversion, the Kurin Lock automatically sends the blood flow around the sequestration chamber through another channel into the culture bottle.

“This additional patent is the next step in building intellectual property protection for our unique blood diversion technology,” said Bob Rogers, Inventor and Chief Executive Officer. “As clinical results continue to prove the effectiveness of Kurin, this US patent further strengthens our position in the market. The simplicity of this product is critical to caregiver compliance and compliance is the key to improving clinical outcomes. With no need for manual manipulation, a Kurin set makes it effortless for clinicians to incorporate diversion, a proven method of lowering contaminated blood cultures, into their routine collection process.”

Blood culture diversion technology can benefit hospitals and health systems, which suffer significant financial losses due to false positive blood culture results. When sepsis is erroneously indicated, unnecessary treatment and testing may ensue. Furthermore, patients who receive false positive blood culture results may be subjected to unneeded antibiotic treatment and an extended hospital stay, putting them at risk for further adverse events.

About Kurin, Inc.
Kurin Corporation, a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), is focused on the design, development, manufacture, marketing, and sale of products that help healthcare providers reduce contaminated blood cultures. San Diego-based Kurin has received FDA 510(k) market clearance. For more information, visit the website at www.kurin.com.

San Diego, CA: Kurin Inc., the inventor and manufacturer of 510(k)-cleared Kurin® blood culture collection sets, has sued Magnolia Medical Technologies in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California for violations of the Lanham Act based on its false and misleading statements. In the suit, Kurin alleges that Magnolia falsely implies that its Steripath device is FDA approved/cleared, and misrepresents product performance data by selecting only the most favorable results.

“Making claims about medical product performance is under the purview of the US Food and Drug Administration. In this case, the FDA has not cleared Steripath for marketing, so making such claims is irresponsible,” said Bob Rogers, CEO of Kurin. “We have a responsibility to accurately portray the ability of medical devices to improve clinical outcomes. Magnolia has abused this principle, confusing healthcare providers.”

Kurin offers an initial specimen diversion technology that automatically and passively diverts potential contaminants during blood culture collection. When skin microbes enter into blood culture samples, false positive test results may misinform physicians and lead to unnecessary medical treatment and risk for patients and significant costs for the hospital.

Kurin’s patented automatic blood diversion product is the only FDA 510(k)-cleared blood culture diversion product on the market. The Kurin comprehensive product suite includes 21g and 23g butterfly safety needles, a PIV connector for use with IV Starts, and culture bottle holders compatible with BD Bactec®, BioMerieux BacT/Alert®, and ThermoFisher VersaTREK™ REDOX™ bottles.

“We strive to present data that accurately reflect the impact of initial specimen diversion in hospitals. Magnolia claims ‘virtual elimination of false positives’ based on studies that do not reflect actual conditions in the hospital including non-compliance due to deficiencies in their product design. In the real world, there are commonly used procedural exceptions that cannot be ignored when evaluating true product efficacy. To knowingly do so is misleading,” said Rogers.

About Kurin, Inc.
Kurin Corporation, a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), is focused on the design, development, manufacture, marketing, and sale of products that help healthcare providers reduce contaminated blood cultures. San Diego-based Kurin has received FDA 510(k) market clearance. For more information, visit the website at www.kurin.com.