The $78.34 billion U.S. clinical laboratory market is expected to grow to $91.31 billion by 2022, according to a new report by the research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. A number of factors are driving this growth, one of which is strong merger and acquisition activity and related service integrations. Another contributor is the trend of laboratories expanding their revenue streams, in response to the Protecting Access to Medicare Act’s reimbursement cuts, by collaborating with retail clinics and e-commerce channels to gain access to new customers. The report, titled “Growth Opportunities in the North American Clinical Laboratory Services Market, Forecast to 2022,” also predicts that the Canadian clinical laboratory market will grow to $13.30 billion by 2022, bolstered by funding from the Canadian Ministry of Health. Frost & Sullivan based these projections on an analysis of hospital-based laboratories, independent laboratories, physician office labs, and other labs throughout the U.S. and Canada.
As clinical laboratories navigate the changing diagnostic marketplace, the report also recommends that they take advantage of growth opportunities presented by the following trends: consumer preference for higher deductible plans, which could particularly benefit small laboratories where patients purchase services themselves; the increasing demand for integrated diagnostic services combining imaging and genomic data; and alternate business models such as direct-to-consumer testing.
Take2 Licenses Tech for Early Detection of Nasopharyngeal Cancer From Grail
Take2 Health, a healthcare technology company based in Hong Kong, has received exclusive worldwide rights from Grail to a circulating DNA-based method for the early detection of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). Take2 was co-founded by Dennis Lo, MD, PhD, Rossa Chiu, MBBS, PhD, and Allen Chan, PhD, who are professors at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lo and his team developed the NPC early detection technology that this agreement covers, but they had licensed the technology to Grail prior to launching Take2. Overall, Take2 aims to make disruptive healthcare inventions widely accessible to the public in China and Asia. The company will initially focus on developing and commercializing technologies for screening early asymptomatic NPC due to the condition’s high prevalence in China and Southeast Asia, as well as the fact that the majority of NPC cases are currently diagnosed at late stages.
Institut Curie, PrediLife Collaborate to Offer Breast Cancer Risk Test
The Paris-based company PrediLife has partnered with the Institut Curie to launch the breast cancer risk test MammoRisk. MammoRisk is designed to complement mammograms and predicts the risk of breast cancer by taking into account five factors: a patient’s age, breast density, family history, breast biopsy history, and a polygenic score. The score is calculated by analyzing hundreds of thousands of genetic polymorphisms, certain combinations of which have a major impact on the risk of breast cancer. Under the terms of this collaboration, the Institut Curie will perform the genetic analyses incorporated in the MammoRisk score. The institute and PrediLife will also study approximately 100 polymorphisms associated with a higher risk of breast cancer and will eventually pursue research projects that leverage the breast cancer expertise of the Institut Curie as well as PrediLife’s experience developing and marketing tests.
Meridian Biosciences to Buy Molecular Diagnostics Company GenePOC
Meridian Biosciences has signed an agreement to acquire GenePOC, a Canadian molecular diagnostics provider, by the end of 2019. With this acquisition, Meridian will get GenePOC’s revogene molecular diagnostics platform, which currently features three Food and Drug Administration-cleared assays for Clostridium difficile, group A Streptococcus, and group B Streptococcus. Assays for these infectious diseases comprise the majority of Meridian’s current total molecular diagnostics sales, and this acquisition will enable Meridian to immediately offer the revogene platform to existing customers who are seeking better workflow and less hands-on time than Meridian’s current Alethia molecular platform provides.
Indivumed, Gnosis Data Analysis Partner on MultiOmics Cancer Library
Indivumed has joined forces with Gnosis Data Analysis to advance personalized cancer healthcare. Specifically, the partners plan to use Gnosis’ machine learning technologies to enhance IndivuType, Indivumed’s multiomics cancer library, with the ultimate goal of generating insights that would not be possible with a single-omics approach to cancer research. IndivuType is a knowledge and discovery platform that contains genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, phosphor-proteomics, and immune-phenotyping imaging information together with clinical and outcome data. Over the course of 15 years, Indivumed worked with leading healthcare institutions around the world to collect and curate high-quality cancer biospecimens in order to create this database. When IndivuType is coupled with Gnosis’ data analytics capabilities, the partners believe the platform will provide deep insights into the underlying mechanisms of cancer that can then be translated into innovative drugs and molecular diagnostics.
Eurofins to Provide Testing for Clinical Trial of Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment
Eurofins Scientific has teamed with Adial Pharmaceuticals to provide genetic testing during Adial’s phase three clinical trial for AD04, a genetically targeted therapeutic agent designed to treat alcohol use disorder without the requirement of abstinence. Under the terms of the agreement, Eurofins will first validate a companion diagnostic that it developed for AD04 that uses quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Eurofins will then use this diagnostic to test potential subjects prior to their enrollment in the clinical trial for a genetic marker indicating whether they are expected to respond to AD04 treatment. Only patients who are positive for this marker will go on to be enrolled in the trial. “[Genetically prescreening patients prior to enrollment] is expected to dramatically enhance the efficacy rates of AD04 in the trial and reduce the time and cost needed to conduct the trial,” said William Stilley, president and CEO of Adial Pharmaceuticals.