Dear LabPulse reader,
This week, a pilot program launched by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was the foremost article garnering attention. The program enables the VA to offer no-cost pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing to veterans enrolled at Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 4 facilities through the end of 2025. Meanwhile, Biotech manufacturer Amgen announced that it would expand its North Carolina presence with a $1 billion manufacturing facility to be built in Holly Springs.
In other top news this week, the European Commission's approval of a pending Novo Holdings acquisition of U.S.-based contract development and manufacturing organization Catalent has raised concern about potential issues the buyout may pose to competition given Catalent's position in the supply chain.
In diagnostics news, BioMérieux was granted special 510(k) clearance for its Filmarray Tropical Fever syndromic panel, a polymerase chain reaction test that provides rapid pathogen identification of six common targets responsible for tropical fever infections. The test was developed by BioFire Defense, a BioMérieux-owned U.S. subsidiary, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Finally, in notable research, new findings suggest that multiplex molecular syndromic panels used to diagnose a urinary tract infection in older adults may be causing clinical harm through misdiagnosis and unnecessary antibiotics in addition to draining Medicare money.
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