Dear LabPulse.com member,
This week, as many in vitro diagnostics industry people gear up for the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo, industry giant Abbott announced a year-over-year increase of 33% in its second-quarter diagnostics revenues to $4.3 billion.
IVD industry observers who are carefully tracking COVID-19 diagnostic testing demand will note that the Abbott Park, Illinois-based company said on Wednesday that its year-over-year increase in diagnostics revenues was offset by a drop in its global COVID-19 testing-related sales compared to the first quarter. Global COVID-19 testing-related sales were $2.3 billion in the second quarter compared to $3.3 billion in the first quarter.
Nonetheless, Abbott saw a surge in rapid test demand in the second quarter and raised its full-year 2022 EPS guidance, which includes projected COVID-19 testing-related sales of $6.1 billion. The company expects higher COVID-19 related sales than it provided in its previously announced guidance.
Abbott now anticipates sales of $5.6 billion through June 2022 and $500 million over the next few months. In Q1, the firm had projected 2022 COVID-19 testing-related sales of approximately $4.5 billion, which it then expected to largely occur in the first half of the year.
Related to the pandemic, AACC notes that clinical laboratories across the world have been challenged in many ways, including having to contend with clinically significant variability in test results that is amplified at the international level. How labs are dealing with these challenges will be discussed during a 2022 AACC roundtable session, "Clinical Laboratory Leadership and Management During a Pandemic: A Global Perspective," on Tuesday, July 26.
Among the event highlights, Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz, two of the whistleblowers who helped bring down Theranos, will speak in a fireside chat at the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Chicago on Tuesday, July 26, at 1 p.m. U.S. Central Time.
Furthermore, throughout 2022, AACC's primary advocacy focus has been on preventing the passage of the Verifying Accurate Leading-edge IVCT Development (VALID) Act, which would significantly alter the regulation of laboratory developed tests (LDTs). A scientific session on July 25 will cover the legislation Congress has introduced and its potential impact on laboratory medicine. The session, "VALID, VITAL, LDT" will be led by experts with experience in both advocacy and LDTs in the lab.
In a teaser of pre-event news for the AACC annual meeting, which will to be held in Chicago from July 24 to July 28, exhibitor Lighthouse Lab Services said on Wednesday that its first wage and morale survey of Medical Laboratory Professionals shows that a majority of its inaugural respondents are feeling overworked and are performing in understaffed labs, despite most receiving modest bumps in compensation when compared to 2021 salaries.
In other LabPulse IVD industry news this week, researchers at the University of Utah, University of Toronto, and other institutions reported that they are developing a serological assay that measures the neutralization activity of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies directly from convalescent or vaccinated sera.
Retail drugstore chain Rite Aid said on Tuesday that it is collaborating with Quest Diagnostics to expand access to COVID-19 molecular testing.
Lung cancer patients with inconclusive bronchoscopy results have just received encouraging news that their tests can now be more accurately classified for cancer risk. In a study published in the journal PLOS One, a group of researchers has clinically confirmed that Veracyte's Percepta Genomic Sequencing Classifier (GSC) can accurately classify lung cancer risk from inconclusive samples taken in a bronchoscopy.
Delfi Diagnostics announced that it has raised $225 million in a series B financing round. The funds will support continued development and commercialization of its liquid biopsy tests for single-cancer early detection, multicancer early detection, and treatment monitoring, according to the company.
