Commercial labs like Quest Diagnostics have faced challenges in keeping pace with outbreaks, leading to extended times to turn around coronavirus tests. The delay–in some cases of up to several weeks– have made testing of significantly less value. With the announcement by Quest on Wednesday that the Food and Drug Administration has granted the company emergency authorization to use a new technique, the company said it expects “to achieve average turnaround times of 1 day for ‘Priority 1’ patients and 2-3 days for all other patients in coming weeks.” The new technique, which “speeds the process of extracting viral RNA from specimens,” will also boost Quest’s overall testing capacity. Read more.
