Deltex Medical Regulatory News (DEMG)

Deltex Medical Group plc

Deltex Medical selected to partner Premier Inc in US comparative effectiveness research project

22 February 2012 - Deltex Medical Group plc ("Deltex Medical", "Company" or "Group"), the global leader in oesophageal Doppler monitoring ("ODM"), announces that it has been selected to participate in a programme evaluating products and clinical interventions in real-world settings at Premier Healthcare Alliance ("Premier") hospitals.

Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals which account for circa 30% of US hospital discharges. Premier, whose mission is to use the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care, is owned by those hospitals and other health systems.

QUEST is a voluntary collaborative consisting of 293 US hospitals nationwide that share data and best practices, while identifying and implementing opportunities for improvement to achieve top performance levels. The Quest charter member hospitals estimate that in three years they have prevented circa 25,000 deaths and reduced healthcare spending by nearly $4.5 billion.

Premier's QUEST® Comparative Effectiveness & Innovation Program ("QCEIP") helps the healthcare community better understand patient outcomes associated with the use of certain products. It consists of the following:

·; Conducting a study that will correlate health outcomes to product performance using Premier's secondary data sources;

·; Creating an abstract for publication based on the results of the secondary data analysis; and

·; After clearing the peer review process, using a variety of communications channels to inform the Premier alliance and broader healthcare community of the study results.

The programme leverages data from the USA's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information to test, validate and substantiate the concepts submitted by suppliers. Deltex Medical was selected for this project along with Baxter International and Nihon Kohden.

Bill Zeruld, vice president of Premier Research Services commented:

"Testing products and clinical interventions in real-world settings is essential to ensure that safe, reliable and cost-effective care is delivered to every patient. In collaborating with these suppliers and Premier alliance hospitals, we can accelerate patient access to the most innovative and efficient products and technologies."

Ewan Phillips, Deltex Medical's chief executive, commented:

"Being selected to work with Premier on the QUEST Comparative Effectiveness & Innovation Program creates a major opportunity for Deltex Medical. We expect to be able to demonstrate and then promote the value of CardioQ-ODM within a collaboration of some of the USA's leading hospitals, including some of our existing accounts. Success has the potential to accelerate the wide-scale adoption of CardioQ-ODM in the USA."

For further information, please contact:-

Deltex Medical Group plc 01243 774 837

Nigel Keen, Chairman njk@deltexmedical.com

Ewan Phillips, Chief Executive eap@deltexmedical.com

Paul Mitchell, Finance Director pjm@deltexmedical.com

Nominated Adviser & Broker

Arden Partners plc 020 7614 5900

Chris Hardie chris.hardie@arden-partners.com

Jamie Cameron jamie.cameron@arden-partners.com

Kreab Gavin Anderson 020 7074 1800

Robert Speed rspeed@kreabgavinanderson.com

Deborah Walter dwalter@kreabgavinanderson.com

Notes for Editors

About Premier

Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the USA's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. http://www.premierinc.com.

About Deltex Medical

Deltex Medical manufactures and markets the CardioQ-ODMÔ system. CardioQ-ODM changes the way doctors care for surgical patients allowing them to recover faster and leave hospital sooner and in better health than they otherwise would do. The performance of the system has been validated through independently conducted, randomised controlled clinical trials and is being translated into routine clinical practice in leading hospitals around the world.

CardioQ-ODM comprises a monitor and a single patient disposable probe. The probe is placed into the oesophagus through either the mouth or nose and the tip positioned facing the adjacent descending aorta. A low frequency ultrasound signal, generated by the monitor, is bounced off the blood travelling down the aorta and the Doppler principle is used to determine the velocity of the blood flow, expressed in distance per cardiac cycle - 'Stroke Distance'. The monitor also calculates the amount of time that blood is flowing down the aorta as a proportion of a cardiac cycle - 'Flow Time'.

The monitor uses a validated proprietary nomogram to extrapolate volumetric data (Stroke Volume, Cardiac Output etc) from the directly measured flow velocity. The nomogram utilises the patient's age weight and height, effectively to estimate the size of the aorta in which the velocity of the flow is being measured. Crucially this means that any reported relative change in Stroke Volume is absolutely identical to the relative change in the directly measured flow velocity variable of Stroke Distance. CardioQ-ODM immediately and reliably identifies even very small changes in the blood flow velocity allowing doctors to intevene earlier and on smaller changes than with any other approach.

Intra-operative individualised Doppler guided fluid management entails insertion and focusing of the probe to obtain a baseline reading, giving a small (200 to 250 ml) fluid challenge directly into the vascular system and seeing if Stroke Volume (or Stroke Distance) increases by more than 10%. If the increase is more than 10%, repeat fluid boluses are administered until such time as the increase is less than 10%: after this no further fluid is given unless Stroke Volume falls by more than 10% - the process is designed to achieve and maintain the individual patient's optimal Stroke Volume. CardioQ-ODM is also used during surgery to guide administration of vaso-active agents such as inotropes.

The CardioQ-ODM helps patients by enabling doctors to reduce the complications that arise from a medical condition that is common to almost all patients having surgery and many others in intensive care or arriving in the accident and emergency department. This condition is known as hypovolaemia - a reduction in circulating blood volume - and in surgical patients arises as a direct consequence of the combined effects of pre-operative starvation, the anaesthetic agents and the blood and fluid losses associated with the surgical procedure itself. Hypovolaemia means that the body struggles to get sufficient blood to the tissues and vital organs which are consequently starved of essential oxygen. This can cause medical complications including peripheral and major organ failure, which if not dealt with quickly can lead to severe compromise or even death.

There are already over 2,300 CardioQ-ODMs currently in use in hospitals worldwide and distribution arrangements are in place in over 30 countries. In addition, there are currently more than 250 clinical publications on the use of the CardioQ-ODM which have repeatedly:-

·; Validated the results of CardioQ-ODM against known standards for measuring cardiac output

·; Proved that CardioQ-ODM works in a wide range of surgical procedures

·; Proved that CardioQ-ODM delivers 50% or more reductions in post-operative complications and 25% or more reductions in length of hospital stay: better care at lower cost.

The SupraQÔis an entirely non-invasive device which uses an ultrasound probe held at the base of the patient's neck to track the flow of blood in the aorta; it presents the same data as the CardioQ-ODM in a similar format and is used for taking snapshots or monitoring over short periods.