The World Health Organization has declared a global emergency, with the coronavirus continuing to spread all over the world.
The healthcare community is working together to combat this – with amazing things being done in diagnostics to identify the disease and help limit the spread.
For this, collaboration has been key. In the US, the FDA are working with interagency partners, international bodies and product developers support the production of new tests.
Roche were among the first companies to launch a rapid test to detect the virus and are now giving these away for free in China.
Genetic testing specialists Qiagen have also been in support. They should have a targeted test ready soon have been actively providing products to disease control institutions in China.
For now, many diagnostic companies and labs in China are using Meridian’s qPCR-based test.
But there’s also been innovative work from YouSeq who’ve produced an NGS monitoring kit and Novacyt who’ve launched a test that can generate results in less than two hours.
While there’s still lots to be done, it’s humbling to work for a market that comes together like this.
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With such a strong 2019, 2020 was expected to be a ‘mega year’ for life science companies with a reported $1.4 trillion in firepower at their disposal for M&As. However, COVID-19 gave us an unexpected twist.
For this episode of CM Conversations, our Director of Operations Tom Maskill spoke with QIAGEN CEO Thierry Bernard.
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Only 30% of executive positions and 18% of board seats are held by women in biotech. I spoke to industry expert, Melissa Gammell, to find out where we're going wrong, how we get more women into biotech and how we keep them there.
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