NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The College of American Pathologists has accredited Baby Genes, a provider of next-generation sequencing-based clinical diagnostics for newborn screening, newborn diagnostics, and family planning. CAP inspectors evaluate a clinical lab's record and quality control procedures as part of the accreditation process. They also assess the lab's equipment, facilities, safety programs, staff qualifications, policies and procedures, and overall management.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation this week opened the [email protected] life science incubator. The 30,000-square-foot facility is located at the New York Genome Center and is a collaboration between J&J Innovation, New York State, and NYGC, who announced plans for the incubator last year. The facility can accommodate up to 30 biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, and consumer and health tech companies and opens with 26 resident companies, including the four winners of the [email protected] QuickFire Challenge. Those winners receive one year of residence along with access to a bench, workstation, and the global JLABS community. The four winners are: Lab11 Therapeutics; Manhattan Biosolutions; Sapience Therapeutics; and Mobile Sense Technologies.
Myriad Genetics said this week a top-five insurer has issued a positive medical policy decision for the Prolaris prostate cancer test. Myriad, through a spokesman, declined to identify the insurer. The firm noted that the positive coverage decision follows updated guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network for prostate cancer supporting Prolaris as a standard of care genetic test for men diagnosed with low and favorable-intermediate risk prostate cancer.
Merck said that Tongji University in Shanghai has joined its CRISPR Core Partnership Program. Under the partnership, Merck will provide Tongji University with CRISPR workflow solutions including assay design, bioinformatics, manufacturing, validation, and application testing to further develop the field of genome editing. Tongji University is the first Chinese member of the partnership program, which comprises some 70 core labs globally including at Harvard Medical School, Columbia University, Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University. Shaorong Gao, dean of the School of Life Science and Technologies at Tongji University, said the partnership will be particularly beneficial to the school's stem cell research.
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