NEW YORK – Siemens Healthineers said Monday that the firm will by September close its Fast Track Diagnostics business for PCR-based testing.
The company said that the decision affects a small portfolio of tests that was primarily sold in Europe. Demand for Fast Track Diagnostics products had fallen significantly since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Siemens said, adding Fast Track Diagnostics was a minor player in the molecular diagnostics space, and it contributed only a small amount to Siemens' diagnostics revenues.
Siemens indicated that the company will lay off about 90 employees, who are primarily employed in Luxembourg.
Siemens acquired Fast Track in 2017 in a deal that brought into the company 80 platform-agnostic assays and syndromic panels.
Fast Track Diagnostics offers a CE-IVD-marked SARS-CoV-2 assay as well as CE-IVD-marked multiplex assays for the detection of infectious causes of respiratory diseases, vesicular rash, stool parasites, and viral meningitis. However, most of Siemens' Fast Track Diagnostics tests are for research use-only.
The firm said that Siemens does not have any comparable tests in the rest of the company's portfolio for the Fast Track Diagnostics customers who intend to continue performing PCR testing.