UCSD, 5 Diagnostic Makers Partner to Ramp COVID-19 Testing Capacity
Summary
Five diagnostics makers—Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), Roche, GenMark Diagnostics (NASDAQ: GNMK), Luminex, and Abbott (NYSE: ABT)—have agreed to work with UCSD to ramp up its capacity to 1,000 to 1,500 completed tests per day, a level UCSD estimates it will reach within two to three weeks. The tests, which are being performed at UCSD Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine (CALM), a 90,000-square-foot facility near the university’s main campus in La Jolla, were among the first in the nation to produce results in hours, rather than days or weeks. “But emerging and widespread challenges across health systems and the nation involving shortages of required chemicals and materials has limited testing to only persons meeting strict diagnostic criteria, such as clear symptoms of disease or known exposure to the virus,” UCSD said in a statement Friday. As of 4 p.m. Thursday a total of 89 San Diego County residents had tested positive for COVID-19 infection, 11 of whom had been hospitalized, according to the county’s tracker. “All of us continue to explore new ways to further increase testing capacity and to develop new diagnostic laboratory assays that can help guide care and therapy for COVID-19 patients,” said Steven Gonias, chief of pathology services for UC San Diego Health and chair of the Department of Pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
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