Even with the best planned and executed MIPP initiatives, there are unavoidable time gaps between when a sponsor plans on launching their product and when the product is available on commercial susceptibility testing devices for use by local laboratories. The AVEP program, unique to IHMA, is flexible and can be custom designed to fill this gap and allow laboratories to test a launched product until the product is available on commercial systems. This is accomplished by distributing Research Use Only (RUO) materials such as drug powders, disks for diffusion testing, MIC strips, or MIC microdilution panels to local laboratories so that they can immediately begin testing the new product against the clinical organisms they encounter.