Apollo Diagnostics unveils new lab for specialized testing

Hyderabad Apollo Diagnostics, leading diagnostic laboratory chains in India announced on Friday that it has launched Apollo Diagnostics' Global Reference Lab (GRL), at Hyderabad.

The Lab backed by the Apollo Hospitals Group, will offer a menu of more than 3,000 tests, and will service clients pan India and Southeast Asia, the firm said.

According to Apollo, the facility is spread across 30,000 square feet, at Balanagar in the suburbs of Hyderabad. The B2B lab is equipped to service both the routine and specialized testing needs of the Hospitals and diagnostic centres all over India.

The GRL has the most modern molecular biology lab with RTPCRs, CB NAAT and GenXpert testing. The end-to-end Biochemistry, Immunology, and Hematology services with flow cytometry for routine testing on the same floor with Immunoflourometry, are on par with the international standards. It is one of the few labs performing maternal and newborn screening tests in the country, the company said in a statement.

Dr Sangita Reddy, Joint MD, Apollo Hospitals Group, said: "The lab has the capacity to process up to 50,000 samples a day without human intervention, and will be a game changer for the entire healthcare industry."

This scalable lab will offer more than 3,000 tests from specialized departments. The lab houses some of the high-end testing including Immunohistochemistry testing and Hematology at Histopathology Lab: FISH and CISH testing capabilities in Cytogenetics and in-house home brew tests in molecular virology, the company said.

Chandra Sekhar C, Group CEO, Apollo Health and Lifestyle Ltd, said: "Like all our laboratories, GRL will be frequently enrolled in stringent clinical laboratory proficiency testing (PT) programs that are used to validate our testing protocols. Periodic review of QC results is a frequent tool for maintaining quality control of patient samples."