Lab worker shortage threatens hot molecular diagnostics industry

A tug-of-war for hiring specialized, hard-to-find lab workers could pull a potential growth industry out of California.
Molecular diagnostic test companies — part of the personalized medicine boom — are competing with hospitals and reference labs for master’s degree-level clinical laboratory scientists, or CLSs. That conflict is driving wages higher, company leaders say, as underfunded job-training programs can’t keep up with demand.
But leaders in the life sciences industry and academia will launch a program in September that could alleviate the supply-demand crush. Tapping federal economic stimulus program cash, the program will narrow the scope of CLS training for molecular diagnostics companies, helping them land the workers they need to quickly send test results back to doctors and patients.
At the same time, the new program could allow hospitals to hold onto more broadly trained lab workers.

Away from BIO's glare, Xoma, Tethys tackle diabetes

It ain’t BIO, but the American Diabetes Association’s big scientific meeting in San Diego may be just as important to a couple of East Bay life sciences companies.
Some 2,700 miles away from this week's Biotechnology Industry Organization’s shindig in Washington, D.C., the ADA meeting has given Berkeley’s Xoma Ltd. and Emeryville-based Tethys Bioscience Inc . a platform for news.

Tethys enlists docs to change diabetes' course

The future of Tethys Bioscience Inc.’s predictive diabetes test may rely on places like Burlington, Iowa, and small-town family practitioners like Dr. Michael AbouAssaly.
Tethys’ simple blood test, which scores the risk of pre-diabetics getting full-blown type 2 diabetes within five years, hit the market in early 2009 to scientific applause. The test, called PreDx (sounds like “predicts”), could help doctors concentrate on their highest-risk patients and change the course of the disease, according to Emeryville-based Tethys.
There’s one problem: getting doctors to give the test. Their focus is typically on treatment, not prevention, said Tethys CEO Mickey Urdea.

Grant makers often reluctant to fund indirect costs

For biomedical nonprofits that rely on philanthropy, raising research grants is only half the battle.
Many philanthropists, be they individuals or large foundations, want to find cures for big diseases or affordable treatments for common ailments that afflict the poor. These same donors tend to be less excited about funding “indirect” costs like overhead, program managers and other science-free but necessary infrastructure.
And there is the rub, a rub that has chafed all kinds of nonprofits, not just those in the biomedical research arena.

Air Force to use Tethys blood test in diabetes study

The U.S. Air Force will use a blood test made by Tethys Bioscience Inc. in a 600 person clinical trial studying better ways to prevent type 2 diabetes.
This trial will study 600 “pre-diabetic” Air Force retirees and dependents and will look at how well a behavior modification program helps keep them from developing the disease. Tethys’ test will be used at the start of the trial, and one group will be told their results, which show their risk, while a control group won’t get that information.

'Great march of human progress' aims to predict, prevent, treat disease at individual level

Some day — perhaps in the next year or two — you’ll be able to spit on your microfluidic chip-embedded Blackberry, which will analyze the sample and instantly diagnose your illness, said life sciences merchant banker Steve Burrill.
So-called personalized medicine will allow people to discover — more quickly and more accurately — what’s ailing them and at a lower cost, Burrill said, and that includes everything from real-time diagnostics and prevention to individualized cancer vaccines.
Personalized medicine already has given rise to companies like cancer diagnostics firm Genomic Health Inc. of Redwood City and up-and-coming stars like diabetes diagnostics company Tethys Bioscience Inc. in Emeryville, cardiovascular diagnostics firm CardioDx Inc. of Palo Alto and Foster City genetic testing company Navigenics Inc.