Personally, I'm glad to see that Alere is discontinuing that meter. I attribute a stroke to the erroneous values that the original InRatio was giving me -- the meter said 2.6 - the hospital said 1.7. When I reported this to Alere, after getting home from the hospital, all they did was send me a newer meter. No apologies. No filings with the FDA. Nothing except a new meter.
I began a quest to find a meter that I could trust, comparing the INRs taken within minutes of each other, from different fingers, and using different meters. I compared the results between meters, and frequently compared the results to blood draws.
The InRatio was often much higher than the other meters. Although I had a years' supply of strips that I bought, I determined that I couldn't/wouldn't trust my life to this faulty metering method. The debacle over defective InRatio 2 strips; recall; temporary unavailability; extremely high prices when they became available; and eventual price stabilization didn't do much to help the meter's prospects. I didn't trust it. I wouldn't trust it. I don't trust it.
I'm glad to see it gone.
When doing my comparison testing, I tested other meters in addition to the CoaguChek XS. I also tested against the Coag-Sense, the Protime 'classic' and the Protime 3. My personal choice, in terms of test accuracy and testing method, was the Coag-Sense. Although slightly more difficult to use, I believe that it's more accurate than the CoaguChek XS. In my testing, I found that the Coag-Sense reported INR resluts that were slightly lower than a blood draw. I'm a lot more comfortable with a 2.2 result from the Coag-Sense (often meaning that my INR in a blood draw may be around 2.4 or 2.5) than I am with a CoaguChek giving me a 2.6 (which, in my testing may mean someting as low as 2.3 or 2.4). I prefer a meter that reports a result that may be slightly lower than the blood draw over one that is slightly higher.
Roche is a marketing juggernaut. They've got the market share for INR test meters pretty well nailed down. Coag-Sense is probably not a large enough player to cause Roche a lot of grief (although I certainly hope that Coag-Sense is around for a long, long time - they make the meter that I trust). I hope that Roche doesn't use Alere's exit of the INR testing market as an opportunity to spike the prices of the meters and strips.