Laboratory News

Kershaw of Sysmex Challenges Pathologists and Lab Directors at Executive War College Yesterday

"If I were a lab manager, there are five diagnostic technologies I would use to ensure that my lab is providing added-value services to clinicians," declared John Kershaw yesterday to a rapt crowd at the Executive War College in Miami. Kershaw, who is COO at Sysmex America was offering insights and predictions about how new in vitro diagnostic (IVD) technologies are likely to influence the market for laboratory testing services.

First on Kershaw's list of recommendations: "Single molecule analysis and quantification, whether through protein or other types of analysis, will play a major role in coming years."

"Number two is microarray analysis. Today, there are too few analytes, but microarray analysis is a technology that, in the future, will provide a high degree of precision, reinforced by redundancy."

"Third is ELISA technology, which is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay," continued Kershaw. "However, for ELISA to play a greater role in the future, this technology requires more development to increase the levels of sensitivity by at least three orders of magnitude. Should that happen, ELISA technology holds great promise."

"Fourth is analysis of metabolites. Currently mass spectrometry is too complex for most clinical labs, but analysis of metabolites has a promising future as a screening tool that can be offered by many specialized labs."

"The fifth and perhaps most important of these trends is flow cytometry," Kershaw concluded. "We know that flow cytometry is fast and easy to use for detecting oncology and infective disorders. Look for this technology to find diagnostic value in a number of new applications."

Kershaw's remarks were directed to the more than 600 pathologists, lab directors, and other lab industry professionals attending the 13th annual Executive War College. Early in the session, Paul Smolke, Healthcare Director of Health Industry Solutions at Microsoft Corporation spoke about the role of consumers in managing their own health records and Trisha Brown, Vice President of DNA Direct of San Francisco, California, surprised the audience with a detailed overview of the exploding number of companies offering genetic tests to consumers via Web sites.

During his presentation, Kershaw said he and the team at Sysmex in Mundelein, Illinois, believe lab directors and pathologists have an extraordinary opportunity to contribute more to medicine in the future if they demonstrate the value of diagnostic results to payers and providers. "We already have technology solutions to reduce costs, but we don't have payers looking clearly at what we do in clinical laboratories," he said. "We can detect early stage cancer, but it requires screening of patients. Unfortunately, the healthcare systems in many countries don't allow such screening because it is too costly."

"The technologies we are discussing today will play a significant role in the increasing proportion of the lab test information that goes into the patient record," Kershaw added. "Clinical diagnostics provides a view at the cellular and sub-cellular level. That's why the role of pathologists will increase in the future-because they are able to make diagnostic decisions based on results from the cellular and sub-cellular level."

The Executive War College continues today, Thursday, May 15, with a special one-day conference on mergers and acquisitions. "Mergers & Acquisitions in Pathology and Medical Laboratory Industry" provides laboratory owners and sellers with 21 presentations on topics such as the trends and forces driving mergers and acquisitions and how to maximize value when positioning a lab business for sale.

Related Information

• Information about the 2008 Executive War College