2021 Year in Review: On Why We Do What We Do
After another challenging year, we’re grateful that the work we do here helps
In more precedented times, 2021 might’ve been described as a banner year for Luminex. Despite the persistent challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic, our teams delivered critical assays and reagents, scaled production of our COVID-19 offerings, expanded our team, services, and facilities, and supported scientists and healthcare providers across the world. We did this and more—in the field, from our international offices, from our homes—all while transitioning into a new, integrated company with DiaSorin following our acquisition back in July.
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While there is much to celebrate, we’re aware that against the backdrop of the rising toll of this outbreak—now, day 590 since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global public health threat,1 with more than 276 million confirmed cases and 5.4 million deaths worldwide2 plus new variants to be cautious of—the close to a successful year for our business is hardly a silver lining for what we’ve lost to this pandemic. The last two years have flown by so quickly, most of us haven’t had time to grieve our losses. We’ve adapted to life at a new pace, and there hasn’t been much time to reminisce over our pre-pandemic lives.
There is still hope, however: there have also been 8.5 billion vaccine doses administered across the globe, with much of Europe, China, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Canada leading the way with over a 70% vaccination rate.3 Testing and treatment options have also come a long way in just two years—seeing the healthcare community and scientists from all over the world develop solutions at this pace has been incredibly humbling.
As a biotech company, most of us are just grateful that the work we do here helps. It helps improve diagnostics (which helps improve health outcomes), it helps support researchers investigating disease mechanics or developing therapeutics, it helps reduce bench time for busy lab techs. This is why we do what we do.
Forging a path forward
As COVID-19 persevered, our teams worked to increase production of the ® Monitoring Microspheres” href=”/blog/magplex-monitoring-microspheres-let-xmap-users-take-troubleshooting-into-their-own-hands/”>MagPlex® Monitoring Microspheres to our catalog, making good on our promise to continue to deliver tools that can help our customers take their research to the next level.
We also launched LuminexPLORE Lab supports assay optimization, conversion, validation options, and more. With their combined knowledge, no project is too big or too small for our team of experts.
Notably, as we look ahead to 2022, the LuminexPLORE team will move into a new and improved lab space in our Austin headquarters, enabling them to expand their capabilities and throughput. These services can provide a lot of time and resource-saving benefits, so we’re looking forward to hearing what the LuminexPLORE team and the scientists we collaborate with accomplish in the coming year.
A unique combination of specialists
DiaSorin’s acquisition of our company in July marked another big milestone in our 26th year. As experts in immuno- and molecular diagnostics, the merge with a larger, multi-national company will bring the best of both businesses to our customer bases. We’re fortunate to have built a strong community over the years, and with our combined expertise, we look forward to developing additional tools and solutions across the academic, biopharmaceutical, and clinical spaces. How we can help just got better.
Tackling COVID-19 and beyond
We may not know exactly what next year has in store, but as we shared at the close of our first year of the pandemic—we’re dedicated to supporting our customers and partners as long as this lasts. Whether it’s SARS-CoV-2 testing solutions, comprehensive diagnostic panels, or research systems, reagents, and tools, we’re here for you however you need it. We’ll be here when this is over, too.
References:
- Opening Remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, 11 March 2020. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. WHO (Internet). Accessed 2021 Dec. Available from: https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19—11-march-2020.
- COVID-19 Dashboard. The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (Internet). Accessed 2021 Dec. Available from: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html.
- Vaccination progress across the world. The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (Internet). Accessed 2021 Dec. Available from: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/international.
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