NEW YORK — Laboratory Corporation of America said this week that it has finalized the acquisition for an undisclosed amount of select outreach services from Tennessee-based healthcare system Ballad Health. The company originally announced the acquisition in September. Under the agreement, Labcorp will operate outreach services across the Appalachian Highlands region that Ballad serves, while Ballad will continue to operate its inpatient and emergency department laboratory, as well as lab services for hospital-based practices, such as oncology.
MeMed said this week that the US Food and Drug Administration has granted breakthrough device designation to the firm's MeMed Severity test for managing individuals suspected of having acute infections and sepsis. The test uses host response technology and machine learning to measure proteins from a blood sample and stratify the risk of a patient with suspected acute infection deteriorating to severe outcomes within 72 hours or death within 14 days. Results can be achieved in less than 15 minutes, MeMed, which has offices in Andover, Massachusetts and Haifa, Israel, said, adding the test can be used with high-throughput analyzers with minimal blood volume requirements.
Abbott said this week its board of directors has increased the firm's quarterly common dividend to $.59 per share, payable on Feb. 14, 2025, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Jan. 15, 2025.
Danaher this week said its board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $.27 per share, payable on Jan. 31, 2025, to shareholders of record on Dec. 27.
Co-Diagnostics of Salt Lake City said this week that it would inaugurate the CoSara Diagnostics oligonucleotide synthesis facility in Ranoli, India, on Dec. 11. The new facility will manufacture oligonucleotides using the firm’s patented Co-Primers chemistry, which underlies Co-Dx’s and CoSara’s PCR diagnostic tests and the new Co-Dx PCR at-home and point-of-care testing platform. CoSara is a 2017 joint venture between Co-Diagnostics and Synbiotics, a member of Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprises (ASE group).
San Diego-based whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatics company Inocras said this week that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) American Society for Quality (ASQ) National Accreditation Board (ANAB) has awarded it ISO 15189 certification. According to Inocras, the company is among a few worldwide with CAP accreditation, CLIA certification, and ISO 15189 certification for performing whole-genome sequencing for cancer.
Liquid biopsy firm Sysmex Inostics of Baltimore said this week that it has received CAP accreditation and ISO15189 certification, which it said, "provide confidence to clinicians, researchers, and partners by reinforcing the accuracy and reproducibility of results across a wide range of diagnostic applications." The company, which also holds CLIA certification, is a subsidiary of Sysmex, a Japanese company.
The Institut Pasteur de Dakar expanded its Diatropix ISO 13485-certified diagnostic manufacturing facility in Senegal this week with financial and technical support from FIND and Unitaid. The high-volume production facility was initially supported under the World Health Organization's Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) program and aims to ensure supply security for a portion of the 500 million rapid diagnostic tests performed on the African continent each year. Diatropix currently manufactures assays under technology transfer agreements with Global Access Diagnostics' subsidiary Mologic as well as with South Korea's Bionote.
San Diego-based liquid biopsy testing firm LuminoDx said this week that its laboratory has received CLIA certification from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. As a result, the firm can begin testing samples with its Factor V assay for liver health. LuminoDx also plans to offer a test for predicting liver rejection, post-transplantation, CEO and Cofounder Yipeng Wang said in a statement.
Swiss firm Genesupport will offer GeninCode’s ROCA ovarian cancer screening test throughout Switzerland, in a distribution deal announced this week. Genesupport will offer the test through all Sonic Switzerland diagnostic and genetic companies to women in Switzerland who are BRCA positive and have not undertaken risk-reducing surgery.
PanGIA Biotech said this week that it has inked a deal with Canary Oncoceutics for the distribution in India of PanGIA's liquid biopsy for early cancer detection. The PanGIA Prostate Assay is a urine-based test that incorporates an artificial intelligence-developed algorithm for the analysis of biomarkers of prostate cancer.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on 360Dx.