Specialty Laboratories Collaborates With Siemens and SEQUENOM on Molecular Diagnostics
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Specialty laboratories, Inc. will participate as a U.S. site for a joint working group on molecular diagnostics initiated by SEQUENOM, Inc. and Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG. This collaboration combines the specialized assets and resources of the three organizations. Siemens Medical Solutions will contribute project funding and engineering expertise. Specialty Laboratories will contribute its expertise in clinical assay validation and workflow analysis. SEQUENOM will provide its MassARRAY Compact, consumables, technical support and analytically validated assays for specific diagnostic tests.
The partnership between Siemens and SEQUENOM was announced in late 2004 when the two companies stated they would work in concert with participating reference laboratories to execute a comprehensive functional requirement analysis for a molecular diagnostics platform.
The first phase of the joint program is a benchmarking study evaluating the analytical data quality and current workflow of the MassARRAY System in laboratories certified under Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). The three organizations expect the benchmarking study to be completed by the fourth quarter 2005.