Limitations of existing blood collection tubes have been known for many years. The predominant tube is the simple silica-based serum tube, which takes up to 30min to clot and when not clotted properly, can result in particulates in the serum that can result in instrument reader disruption. Serum tubes with thrombin are available to clot samples faster, however these tubes are not effective against higher concentrations of anticoagulants and their high price has limited widespread adoption. Plasma tubes are used as an alternative that does not need to wait for clotting, however the resultant plasma still contains all the clotting factors and remnant cells and is not optimal for biochemical analysis.
Q-Sera has developed a gold standard serum tube, with a fast turn-around time that can be manufactured for universal implementation.