Transducers Added to S-FAST, S-ICU, S-MSK, S-Nerve and S-Cath Ultrasound Tools S Series Product Line Gains Second Prestigious International Design Award

BOTHELL, WA - August 21, 2008 - Sonosite, Inc. (Nasdaq:SONO), the world leader and specialist in hand-carried ultrasound for the point-of-care, announced today that it has begun customer shipments of its first major expansion of capabilities for the S Series™ ultrasound tools. The upgrade adds four transducers covering a wide range of clinical applications to the S Series product line and enables playback of the revolutionary Sonosite Education Key™ program training modules. It is available for purchase to existing customers and can be easily downloaded from a USB thumb drive.

Award Winning Design Recently, the S Series was recognized with its second, coveted design award, an International Design Excellence Award (IDEA), from an annual, juried competition co-sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and BusinessWeek, that highlights the most innovative and exciting product and product concept designs of the year. Out of 1517 total entries, only 12 awards were given in the Medical and Scientific category. The Sonosite S Series product line also won an iF Product Design award in March 2008 from the European International Forum. With the S Series ultrasound tools, clinicians get breakthrough image quality and technology that acquires the optimal image in seconds with just two controls, packaged in the first and only ZERO footprint ultrasound solution. S Series ultrasound tools can be carried, mounted on a pole, or fixed on a wall or ceiling, and of course, withstand being dropped from three feet onto a hard surface. Additionally customers can use S Series system transducers with Sonosite's M-Turbo™ product line. As with the M-Turbo and MicroMaxx® systems, S Series products come with the same, industry-leading, 5-year warranty on the system and Sonosite-manufactured transducers. New Transducers Added to S Series Customized Configurations
  • L-25x/13-6 transducer for the S-FAST™ product - optimized for vascular and venous scanning, examination of superficial structures and guidance of vascular access procedures. The new transducer joins the P21x/5-1 phased array and ICTx/8-5 curved array transducers on the S-FAST product, as well as the C60x/5-2 curved array, L38x/10-5 linear array, and HFL38x/13-6 linear array transducers, for abdominal, cardiac, vascular, venous access, small parts and OB/Gyn emergency applications.
  • P-10x/8-4 transducer for the S-ICU™ and S-Cath™ products - now available for pediatric cardiac and abdominal scanning and for scanning the delicate structures of neonatal heads. It joins the available suite of curved, linear and phased array transducers that cover a range of critical care imaging and interventional applications such as line placement, biopsy, dialysis access, stent placement and vascular access.
  • The C-60x/5-2 transducer for the S-MSK™ product - designed to facilitate guidance of hip injections. Just released in March of this year, the S-MSK tool is the first ultrasound product customized for musculoskeletal specialists. It provides exceptional imaging of superficial and deep targets for a quick look assessment and guidance of interventional procedures such as injections and aspirations of the knee, shoulder, elbow and other joints in the body.
  • The SLAx/13-6 high frequency linear transducer for the S-Nerve™ product - for guidance of pediatric peripheral nerve blocks and line placements. The S-Nerve is available with a combination of curved and linear array transducers for virtually every anatomical and clinical anesthesia applications. The S-Nerve tool allows the anesthesiologist to perform the most difficult upper and lower extremity blocks as well as confidently place intravascular lines in the desired vessels.
Education Key for Training at the Point-of-Care
Leveraging the integration of Texas Instruments' multimedia DaVinci™ technology with its fourth generation product platform, Sonosite's Education Key™ program is available on a USB thumb drive that can be played directly on the S Series products. The Education Key program features clinical training videos with market specific versions for anesthesiology, emergency medicine and critical care. Training modules are also available to help new users quickly learn how to optimize the system. Sonosite's Education Key program can also be played on PC and MAC computers.

About Sonosite
Sonosite, Inc. (www.sonosite.com) is the innovator and world leader in hand-carried ultrasound. Headquartered near Seattle, the company is represented by ten subsidiaries and a global distribution network in over 100 countries. Sonosite's small, lightweight systems are expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by cost-effectively bringing high performance ultrasound to the point of patient care. The company employs over 600 people worldwide.