WALTHAM, Mass. & Suzhou, CHINA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PerkinElmer, Inc., a global leader focused on improving the health and safety of people and the environment, today announced the opening of Suzhou PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory Co., Ltd. in China.
More than 130 local government officials, key opinion leaders, medical research professionals and academics recently attended a ceremony to mark the opening of the lab. This new facility provides a comprehensive offering of lab services to hospitals and patients in China, supporting the prevention of birth defects in newborns and infectious disease in adults.
“With China’s newborn population exceeding 16 million per year and prenatal screening at 40 percent, the Chinese government is increasingly focused on investing in maternity and child care institutions for birth defects prevention,” said Xu-ming Bian, Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital. “Chinese regulations on maternal and child health administration are improving, the national birth defects prevention network is evolving, and prenatal screening and diagnosis systems have been established. The Chinese government continues to support third-party labs such as PerkinElmer’s Suzhou facility to respond to the needs of its residents.”
PerkinElmer is an industry leader in neonatal, prenatal and infectious disease screening through its comprehensive portfolio of instruments, kits and software. The Suzhou PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory extends the Company’s solutions to include an expanded range of lab services for customers and patients, including molecular cytogenetics detection, screening for inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs), and viral loads testing.
“China continues to strive to improve the efficiency of prenatal and neonatal screening to reduce the false positive rate, develop innovative, rapid prenatal diagnosis technology to detect chromosomal disorders, and expand access to infectious disease screening testing,” said Johnson Zhang, Vice President and General Manager, Diagnostics, Asia-Pacific for PerkinElmer. “As the global leader for prenatal and neonatal screening and infectious disease detection, we have strong relationships –some which have lasted for over 20 years – with more than 400 prenatal and neonatal screening centers and over 2,000 infectious disease screening laboratories across China.”
The Suzhou PerkinElmer Medical Laboratory also serves as a venue for academics and clinical medical doctors to perform scientific R&D, collaborate and train colleagues, and transform medical research into the development of new technologies for clinical use. In addition, PerkinElmer plans to expand its menu of services in the lab to include a series of tumor testing, as well as introduce new applications based on molecular cytogenetic platforms such as sequencing technology.
About PerkinElmer, Inc.
PerkinElmer, Inc. is a global leader focused on improving the health and safety of people and the environment. The Company reported revenue of approximately $2.2 billion in 2013, has about 7,700 employees serving customers in more than 150 countries, and is a component of the S&P 500 Index. Additional information is available through 1-877-PKI-NYSE, or at www.perkinelmer.com.