NEW YORK ─ A wide swath of companies in the healthcare sector have banded together to form the COVID-19 Testing Industry Consortium to accelerate aspects of SARS-CoV-2 testing, including research and clinical diagnostic applications, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) said Thursday.
Nineteen organizations, organized and led by BMS, will seek to accelerate research through enhanced collaboration and information sharing with the ultimate goal of improving COVID-19 testing globally.
New York-based BMS noted that the consortium brings together a diverse group of companies with synergistic areas of expertise, including precision medicine, diagnostics, occupational health, pharmaceuticals, and clinical testing to help provide clarity and potential solutions to COVID-19 testing challenges.
The consortium members are Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, ArcherDx, Biocartis, Color, Diaceutics, DxTerity Diagnostics, Genosity, GlaxoSmithKline, Hematogenix Laboratory Services, Infinity BiologiX, Interpace Pharma Solutions, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Laboratory Corporation of America, NeoGenomics Laboratories, Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Syngene International, and Takeda Pharmaceutical.
"To uncover innovative ways to improve COVID-19 testing quickly during this global pandemic, it’s critical that we break down silos and bring together researchers from different organizations with complementary areas of expertise," Saurabh Saha, senior vice president of translational medicine at BMS, said in a statement.
To advance the goals of the consortium, members may share relevant expertise, materials, and experiences to accelerate understanding of COVID-19; analyze available scientific and health data, materials, and information to develop, improve, and deploy current assays and new approaches for COVID-19 testing; and contribute knowledge gained from the collaborative research by publishing work that will inform the scientific community and general public of the consortium’s findings.