ELMWOOD PARK, N.J.,
April 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --
BioReference Laboratories, Inc., an OPKO Health company (NASDAQ:
OPK), today announced that it will continue to prioritize COVID-19
testing for hospital inpatients and critically ill patients around
the country.
"Our goal is to maintain the current 24 hour turnaround time for
these patients," said Jon R. Cohen,
M.D., Executive Chairman of BioReference Laboratories. "Nothing is
more important than getting a timely result back to the medical
personnel on the front lines making treatment decisions on a
minute-to-minute basis."
"Multiple types of hospitals, for-profit, not-for-profit, large
health systems, individual hospitals, academic medical centers, and
community hospitals have all reached out to get their results in a
timely fashion. We have now tested almost 200,000 patients and will
continue to grow our capacity from 20,000 tests/day to 35,000
tests/day within the next week. While prioritizing hospital
patients, at the same time we will continue to strive to keep our
current turnaround time for non-hospital patients at 2-3 days from
the time we receive the specimen," said Dr. Cohen.
Providers should refer to the most current CDC guidelines for
further information on appropriate testing of patients, available
here
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-criteria.html.
About COVID-19 Testing at BioReference Laboratories,
Inc.
BioReference Laboratories is accepting specimens for
COVID-19 testing from healthcare providers, clinics and health
systems throughout the United
States to promote earlier diagnosis of the coronavirus and
to aid in limiting spread of infection. In addition to its
nationwide COVID-19 testing offering, BioReference has partnerships
with the New York State Department
of Health, the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation
(NYC Health + Hospitals), the
State of New Jersey, the
State of Florida and the cities of
Detroit and Miami to provide COVID-19 testing.
BioReference is offering a real-time reverse-transcription
polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) assay with expected
24-72 hour turnaround time. The Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 test has
been made available pursuant to the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration Emergency Use Authorization for diagnostic testing
in CLIA certified high-complexity laboratories. All tests are
conducted in BioReference's main laboratory in Elmwood Park, N.J., which currently has a
capacity to run up to 20,000 COVID-19 tests per day. For more
information,
visit https://www.bioreference.com/coronavirus.
About BioReference Laboratories, Inc.
BioReference provides comprehensive testing to physicians, clinics,
hospitals, employers, government units, correctional institutions
and medical groups. The company is in network with the five largest
health plans in the United States,
operates a network of 10 laboratory locations, and is backed by a
medical staff of more than 160 MD, PhD and other professional level
clinicians and scientists. For more information,
visit www.bioreference.com.
About OPKO Health
OPKO Health is a diversified
healthcare company. In diagnostics, its BioReference Laboratories
is one of the nation's largest full-service clinical laboratories;
GeneDx is a rapidly growing genetic testing business; the 4Kscore®
test is used to assess a patient's individual risk for aggressive
prostate cancer following an elevated PSA and to help decide about
next steps such as prostate biopsy; Claros® 1 is a point-of-care
diagnostics platform with a total PSA test approved by the
FDA. In our pharmaceutical pipeline, RAYALDEE is our first
pharmaceutical product to be marketed. OPK88003, a
once-weekly oxyntomodulin for type 2 diabetes and obesity -
reported positive data from a Phase 2 clinical trial. It's
among a new class of GLP-1/glucagon receptor dual agonists.
OPK88004, a SARM (selective androgen receptor modulator) is
currently being studied for various potential indications. The
Company's most advanced product utilizing its CTP technology, a
once-weekly human growth hormone for injection, successfully met
its primary endpoint and key secondary endpoints in a Phase 3 study
and is partnered with Pfizer. OPKO also has research, development,
production and distribution facilities abroad.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking
Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements," as
that term is defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995 (PSLRA), which statements may be identified by words
such as "expects," "plans," "projects," "will," "may,"
"anticipates," "believes," "should," "intends," "estimates," and
other words of similar meaning, including statements regarding
BioReference's testing for COVID-19 and the timing of and
availability of the test, the expected daily capacity for testing,
the ability to expand our test capacity and the timeline for doing
so, and the expected turnaround time for testing of hospital and
non-hospital patients, as well as other non-historical statements
about our expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding our
business, technologies and products, financial condition,
strategies or prospects. Many factors could cause our actual
activities or results to differ materially from the activities and
results anticipated in forward-looking statements. These factors
include those described in the OPKO Health, Inc. Annual Reports on
Form 10-K filed and to be filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission and in its other filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. In addition, forward-looking statements may
also be adversely affected by equipment and reagent shortages,
general market factors, competitive product development, product
availability, federal and state regulations and legislation, the
regulatory process for new products and indications, manufacturing
issues that may arise, patent positions and litigation, among other
factors. The forward-looking statements contained in this press
release speak only as of the date the statements were made, and we
do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking
statements. We intend that all forward-looking statements be
subject to the safe-harbor provisions of the PSLRA
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/opko-healths-bioreference-laboratories-partners-with-hospitals-nationwide-to-provide-prioritized-testing-to-inpatients-with-suspected-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-301035608.html
SOURCE BioReference Laboratories, Inc