SECAUCUS, N.J. and IRVING,
Texas and BOSTON, Oct. 20,
2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX),
the nation's leading provider of diagnostic information services,
today announced it has formed an agreement with the Texas
Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to provide COVID-19
Kindergarten through Senior (K-12) school testing services to
support safer classroom learning throughout the state of
Texas. Ginkgo Bioworks
(NYSE: DNA), through its Concentric by Ginkgo program, will provide
support services, such as online reporting and site staffing, for
the program through its K-12 school testing collaboration with
Quest.
With thousands of schools eligible for the program throughout
over 1,150 districts in Texas, Quest Diagnostics will
offer COVID-19 testing services to participating public,
private and charter K-12 schools for the duration of the 2021-2022
school year. Quest will perform testing using polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) and other nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT)
technologies through its major clinical laboratories in the
Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan areas.
Under the state program, school administrators can elect to
implement a testing program that serves students, teachers and
staff through pooled testing. Schools and families do not pay for
testing. Instead, an Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC)
ReOpening Schools Grant, through a collaboration among the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) and DSHS will cover the costs.
"Quest Diagnostics' expertise in COVID-19 testing can help kids
and teachers learn more safely throughout Texas in person this school year," said
Chad Richards, Vice President and
General Manager, Southwest Region, Quest Diagnostics. "Testing is
critical to containing COVID-19's spread and creating safer
environments for all of us. We applaud the state of Texas for recognizing the value of testing for
children, faculty and staff, and look forward to bringing our high
quality and convenient testing capabilities to participating
schools in the program."
A national leader in COVID-19 testing for patients and
healthcare providers, Quest Diagnostics has deepened its K-12
school testing presence in recent weeks, directly and with
collaborators. Quest was named one of the laboratory providers for
Ginkgo's recently announced agreement to provide COVID-19
testing in K-12 schools across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the 2021-2022 school year.
Quest Diagnostics also provides K-12 school testing in over 20
states nationwide.
"Our collaboration with Quest Diagnostics and Ginkgo Bioworks is
meaningful because our COVID-19 testing practices are now supported
by leaders in the healthcare industry," said Lonnie Morgan, Vice President of Strategic
Partnerships at ResponsiveEd, which is implementing pooled testing
across all 85 of its schools in Texas. "By working together, our students,
educators, and families have more peace of mind and our classrooms
become better places for learning.
"It's a privilege for us to join with Quest Diagnostics and to
work alongside educators and public health leaders across
Texas to help keep kids in class
and COVID out with this program," said Matt
McKnight, Chief Commercial Officer at Ginkgo Bioworks and
head of Concentric by Ginkgo. "Testing programs like this provide
schools with the freedom and flexibility they need to interrupt
chains of transmission and reduce disruption to all the incredibly
important activities that happen in school communities every
day."
Quest is a major healthcare services provider in Texas, and has approximately 4,200 employees
across the state.
About Pooled Testing
Pooled testing, which combines specimens (typically nasal swabs)
from all consenting individuals in a classroom and runs them as a
single test, can significantly increase testing capacity and lower
the cost of testing programs. Quest provides pooled testing for
schools and other institutions using high quality, validated PCR
grade laboratory tests. Pooled testing is a strategy that builds on
many measures undertaken by schools and public health systems,
including vaccination (for individuals 12 years of age and older),
symptom screening, physical distancing and facilities improvements,
masks/face coverings, hand hygiene, use of personal protective
equipment and monitoring of return to school after
illness.
For more information, visit ConcentricByGinkgo.com and
QuestBacktoClass.com.
This project is supported by the National Testing Action Program
(NTAP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as
part of a financial assistance award totaling $10B with 100 percent funded by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the HHS
Coordination Hubs. The contents are those of the author(s) and do
not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an
endorsement, by the CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more
information, please visit DSHS.Texas.gov.
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health
outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of
clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to
identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve
health care management. Quest annually serves one in three
adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in
the United States, and our nearly
50,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the
right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that
transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo is building a platform to enable customers to program cells
as easily as we can program computers. The company's platform is
enabling biotechnology applications across diverse markets, from
food and agriculture to industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals.
Ginkgo has also actively supported a number of COVID-19 response
efforts, including K-12 pooled testing, vaccine manufacturing
optimization and therapeutics discovery. For more information,
visit www.ginkgobioworks.com.
Forward-Looking Statements (Gingko Bioworks)
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including
statements regarding the provision of certain K-12 COVID-19 testing
services. These forward-looking statements generally are identified
by the words "believe," "project," "potential," "expect,"
"anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future,"
"opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," "will be,"
"will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions.
Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other
statements about future events that are based on current
expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks
and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to
differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press
release, including but not limited to: (i) the effect of the
business combination with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. ("Soaring
Eagle") on Ginkgo's business relationships, performance, and
business generally, (ii) risks that the business combination
disrupts current plans of Ginkgo and potential difficulties in
Ginkgo's employee retention, (iii) the outcome of any legal
proceedings that may be instituted against Ginkgo related to its
business combination with Soaring Eagle, (iv) volatility in the
price of Ginkgo's securities now that it is a public company due to
a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive and
highly regulated industries in which Ginkgo plans to operate,
variations in performance across competitors, changes in laws and
regulations affecting Ginkgo's business and changes in the combined
capital structure, (v) the ability to implement business plans,
forecasts, and other expectations after the completion of the
business combination, and identify and realize additional
opportunities, and (vi) the risk of downturns in demand for
products using synthetic biology. The foregoing list of factors is
not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors
and the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk
Factors" section of Ginkgo's current report on Form 8-K filed with
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on
September 20, 2021 and other
documents filed by Ginkgo from time to time with the SEC. These
filings identify and address other important risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ
materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made.
Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking
statements, and Ginkgo assumes no obligation and does not intend to
update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a
result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does
not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.
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SOURCE Quest Diagnostics