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The US interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) tuberculosis testing market has been largely dominated by one player, but Quest Diagnostics' acquisition of the US operations of a smaller contender has potential to increase competition in the rapidly growing market, some experts say. The leading IGRA tuberculosis test, Qiagen's QuantiFERON-TB had global sales of $185 million in 2017, about half of which was made up of US sales, according to a spokesman. Quest's plans to acquire the US operations of Oxford Immunotec, maker of the competing T Spot.TB IGRA tuberculosis test, could add scale and efficiency to a less widely known competitor in a rapidly growing market, financial analysts and tuberculosis experts say. The $170 million deal, in which Quest will also acquire US operations of Oxford Immunotec's Accutix tick-borne disease test, is expected to close by year end.

In a recent article, we discussed secondhand cannabis smoke and why a person has very little chance to generate a positive hair test from it. A few folks wrote to us explaining they had indeed failed a hair test thanks to the secondhand smoke around them and not what they consumed. We got enough responses that we felt the need to delve deeper into the issue around secondhand smoke and hair follicle tests. In 2015, the Cannabist spoke with Quest Diagnostics Employer Solutions Director of Science and Technology, Dr. Barry Sample, about why secondhand smoke should not trigger a positive test. Dr. Sample explained that, “Hair testing detects a pattern of repetitive use and does not detect recent or single (first time) use. Published, peer-reviewed studies to date have not demonstrated the reporting of a hair specimen as positive for marijuana use due to ‘passive’ or ‘incidental’ exposure.” In the case of a failed hair test, subjects can take a second follow-up test. In this case, hair samples are usually washed to remove any secondhand contaminants from the test.

Quest Diagnostics used an 18-month leadership development program called LeadingQuest Academy to overhaul its leadership culture and drive new growth. The academy focused on experiential learning through an in-residence program, action learning projects, cross-functional team-building and pre- and post-assessments.

In 2015 Arizona passed a law that allowed people to obtain any test offered by a licensed clinical laboratory without a health care provider’s request or authorization. The benefits of the bill largely fell by the wayside when the primary company that supported the bill was found to be lying about their testing process. However, while all eyes were on the downfall of Theranos, Sonora Quest Laboratories started My Lab ReQuest, their own direct-to-consumer blood testing. “Theranos was already in that space. LabCorp had announced, nationally, that they were going to get into the direct-to-consumer space. So, it was an internal business decision on our part to expand direct-to-consumer,” David Dexter, CEO of SQL, said. “I will tell you that I was somewhat of a skeptic that we were truly entering a direct-to-consumer phase in health care, but I gave way completely because once we completely delivered the direct-to-consumer product, within 90 days of rolling it out, the response was much stronger than I had anticipated.”