Ed Roullard, SAFC Supply Solutions’ VP of sales and marketing, explained that the service is intended to act as a “one stop shop” for customers seeking molecular grade raw materials, custom oligonucleoitde synthesis, PCR products and the firm’s Proligo reagents raw materials line.
Roullard told in-PharmaTechnologist that: “The medical diagnostics market is expected to grow significantly over the next few years,” and predicted that, within this, molecular diagnostics alone will expand between 15 and 20 per cent.
He also suggested that, while at present only a small number of drug companies have in-house capabilities, “overtime medical diagnostics will become a part of pharma,” and predicted that having such capacity will be standard practice within five years.
Roullard went on to say that the scope of SAFC’s offering differentiates it from its competitors, which was an opinion reiterated in a press release by George Crowell, manager of the firm’s diagnostics unit.
Crowell suggested that: “The breadth of this offering is now unrivalled in our industry. Additionally, we can help mitigate risk in our customers’ supply chain as all our products are produced in ISO 9001 certified facilities.”
The medical diagnostics market has grown significantly in recent years, driven by both the emerging personalised therapy sector, where accurate diagnosis of a patient's disease is critical to selecting the correct treatment, and by the need to improve traditional clinical diagnostics.
The medical trials industy has also help boost the market through its increasing reliance upon diagnostics kits to determine the suitability, or otherwise, of potential trial subjects.
As a result companies as disparate as Abbott Laboratories, Beckman Coulter and Affymetrix have significantly expanded their respective range of diagnostic products, placing a greater strain on the supply of raw materials and, SAFC hopes, creating demand for its new offering.