Hi raiizo, I've been looking into things further so here goes:...

Hi raiizo,

I've been looking into things further so here goes:

From a number of scientific journal reviews i've read many have stated that both BD and Copan are further developing their systems to do what APAS does, ie Identify bacteria on a culture plate based on their colony morphology (not just detect growth). When you look into the research in this area there are a number of groups who have been working on it, some of them partnered with biotech companies, and the tech has been there for years now and applied in areas such as food and environmental microbiology.
To my mind it wouldn't be a huge step for BD, Copan, i2A to include the necessary lasers/sensors and updated algorithms in future versions of their systems or upgrade existing set-ups.

Using their existing imaging systems Copan and i2A are already offering bacterial ID using chromogenic agar:
http://www.copanusa.com/news-events...n-automatically-detect-mrsa-chromogenic-agar/

And are partnered with research groups using more advanced methods to ID bacteria on non-chromogenic agar:

http://www.microbia.org/

BD Kiestra I could not find any gossip on but hey maybe they will be the company to offer the LOI to LBT/CCS?? It would be a shorter path to a market edge.