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In Brief This Week: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Predictive Oncology, Applied DNA Sciences, and More

NEW YORK – Thermo Fisher Scientific said this week that it anticipates reported and organic revenue growth of approximately 10 percent for the second quarterThe company had previously said that it expected Q2 organic revenues to be flat or to decline by up to 15 percent. The better-than-expected growth was primarily driven by strong global sales of PCR-based tests and other products and services related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed more than $1.4 billion in revenues in the second quarter. At the end of the trading day on Monday, Thermo Fisher's stock rose more than 4 percent to $382.27.

Separately, Thermo Fisher said this week that its board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $.22 per common share, payable on Oct. 15 to shareholders of record as of Sept. 15.


Predictive Oncology said this week that it has completed its acquisition of Quantitative Medicine for $1.8 million. QM is a biomedical analytics and computational biology company that was cofounded by Robert Murphy and Joshua Kangas of Carnegie Mellon University’s Computational Biology Department to commercialize a computational drug-discovery platform called CoRE. The company said the acquisition will enable it to integrate the database of drug-response and genomic profiles gathered by its Helomics subsidiary from more than 150,000 cancer cases over more than 10 years of clinical testing with QM's machine-learning platform to discover and develop new anti-cancers therapies.


Applied DNA Sciences this week announced the formation of its wholly owned subsidiary, Applied DNA Clinical Labs, which will be focused on the commercial development of tests for detecting SARS-CoV-2 and invasive circulating tumor cells. The lab will enable clinical testing of patient specimens for virology assays and will facilitate the further development of the company’s liquid biopsy platformfor which the firm plans to eventually seek regulatory approval.

Earlier this year, the company received Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for its RT-PCR Linea COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 kit. The EUA was recently amended to include extraction of RNA by a magnetic method of nucleic acid extraction. Applied DNA Sciences is also planning additional amendments, including one to introduce automation to the process.


Arizona Governor Doug Ducey this week announced that Sonora Quest Laboratories, the Arizona Department of Health Services, and PerkinElmer have signed a collaboration agreement to expand COVID-19 testing in Arizona. Sonora Quest said it expects to process 35,000 diagnostic tests per day by the end of July, and up to 60,000 tests per day by the end of August. The company will be using Chemagic 360 instruments, Janus G3 Primary Sample Reformatters, and PCR+ Workstations to automate PerkinElmers RNA extraction and RT-PCR testing. Sonora Quest noted that it aims to have test results available within 24 hours for anyone who is tested.

Through this partnership, the State of Arizona and Arizona Department of Health Services are providing Sonora Quest $1 million for the purchase of new processing equipment.


Myriad Genetics said this week that it will offer the Gene chatbot from OptraHealth to triage patients who might be candidates for genetic tests. The bot provides interactive multimedia content, with the option to chat with a certified genetic counselor, to help patients determine if a genetic test is appropriate. It also helps patients find suitable care providers who can order tests.

Myriad will launch Gene later this year for its Foresight and Prequel prenatal tests and for companion diagnostic testing in oncology.


In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.

 

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