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In Brief This Week: Sequenom, PerkinElmer, Quest Diagnostics, and More

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – In its Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2017 this week, Laboratory Corporation of America said that the US Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed Sequenom on Feb. 7. The subpoena was issued as part of an investigation by the SEC into trading activity of Sequenom's shares related to the July 2016 announcement that it was being acquired by LabCorp. The commission issued a similar subpoena to LabCorp on March 7, the company said, adding that it is cooperating with the requests.


PerkinElmer this week declared a regular quarterly dividend of $.07 per share of common stock, payable on Aug. 10 to all shareholders of record at the close of business on July 21.


Quest this week completed its previously announced agreement to buy PeaceHealth's outreach laboratory services and manage 11 PeaceHealth labs. Under a definitive agreement, Quest will acquire the not-for-profit healthcare system's outreach lab service operation. Under a professional laboratory services agreement, Quest will manage 11 labs that PeaceHealth will continue to own. The labs serve PeaceHealth's medical centers in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.


Great Basin Scientific this week announced today that its shares of common stock will be quoted under the symbol GBSN beginning May 5. The common stock was previously quoted under the temporary symbol GBSND on the OTCQB market as a result of the reverse stock split of its issued and outstanding shares of common stock that became effective on April 10.


MDxHealth announced this week that it has signed a contract with national provider network MediNcrease Health Plans to make its ConfirmMDx for Prostate Cancer and SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer tests available to the 5.5 million patients covered through its clients and payors.


Applied Proteomics announced this week that it has signed an agreementwith MultiPlan to join its PHCS Network, MultiPlan Network, MultiPlan Workers’ Compensation Network, MultiPlan Auto Medical Network, and ValuePoint by MultiPlan. The 50 million to 75 million people who use MultiPlan’s networks will have access to theSimpliPro Colon test.


Medite Cancer Diagnostics this week announced that it has restructured its organization in Germany. Effective immediately, all sales, marketing, and sales fulfillment personnel and activities will report to Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Jeff Rencher. All manufacturing, R&D, technical service, and quality management personnel and activities will report directly to Chief Commercialization and Strategy Officer Stephen Von Rump, while all financial personnel and activities will report to CFO Susan Weisman. Rencher, Von Rump, and Weisman report directly to Medite CEO David Patterson.


Laboratory Corporation of America this week completed its previously announced acquisitions of the Mount Sinai Health System Clinical Outreach Laboratories and Pathology Medical Laboratories. Mount Sinai will continue to provide laboratory testing for patients registered at its hospitals and ambulatory facilities, and for physicians operating professional practices for anatomic pathology, molecular pathology, and genetics.


Medicare contractor First Coast Service Options this week revised its local coverage determination for gene expression profiling panel for the management of breast cancer treatment to include Agendia’s MammaPrint test, Agendia said. First Coast is the Medicare contractor for Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The revised LCD became effective on March 17.


EKF Diagnostics said this week that it’s expanding the distribution of its Procalcitonin LiquiColor Test into Eastern Europe, Middle East, and APAC regions. Procalcitonin, a marker for bacterial infection and sepsis, is now widely recognized as an important adjunct marker in sepsis diagnosis which aids in the differentiation between viral and bacterial infections, the firm said. EKF noted that it has started to see significant interest in the Asia Pacific region for PCT, and that it is working closely with three major distributors covering the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam to introduce PCT into hospitals.


Paradigm Diagnostics and TME Research announced this week an expanded national rollout of their Breast Cancer Registry. Paradigm’s Neoadjuvant Breast Registry originally launched as a pilot in 2015, to utilize Paradigm’s Cancer Diagnostics Test. The expanded phase of the registry is targeted to enroll 300 to 400 patients across 15 clinical sites in the US.

Paradigm also announced this week that it has entered into a contractual agreement with AHCCCS for coverage of Paradigm Cancer Diagnostic.


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