A Robust Response to Respiratory Season

With a recent acquisition and continued innovation, QuidelOrtho is committed to bringing testing closer to the patient.

With COVID, flu and RSV all making headlines, this year’s respiratory season promises to be one for the ages. One market leader ready to meet that demand is QuidelOrtho. The diagnostics company has undergone a transformation during the past few years with its acquisition of some Alere business and with the acquisition of Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. In a recent podcast, Share Moving Media’s Scott Adams spoke to QuidelOrtho Chairman and CEO Doug Bryant about some of those changes and what it means for supply chain leaders.

from time to time,” Bryant said. “Can your organization come together, rise to the challenge that’s in front of you and get it done? Can you do it in a way that keeps everybody intact, keeps everybody motivated in wanting to do the next big thing?”

“Our increased capacity and control of our supply chains could be a competitive advantage for us because our competition has already said that they won’t have product for a while,” Bryant said. “We started ramping up a while ago, so we’re going to be in pretty good shape.”

QuidelOrtho is also seeing a continued movement to bring testing closer to the patient. “That could be in a hospital setting, but it also could be urgent care or the physician office,” Bryant said. “The train has left the station in terms of the public understanding that if you don’t feel well, maybe you should go get tested for something.”

There’s an expectation on the part of the average person that if they see a physician, they expect to get a test and they want to know the answer. Then if it’s treatable, they want to be treated on the spot. The ability to keep moving products closer to where the patient lives will be key in the coming years.

Transformational events

With the acquisition of Ortho, the diagnostics company essentially doubled overnight. Running an operation that doubled and integrating all the complexities has come with its challenges, but also opportunities.

“We need to be able to achieve what I would call transformational events

The Alere asset acquisition basically doubled QuidelOrtho’s revenue at the time. The company also had to operate in 130 different countries and set up order to cash systems. And they had to put in place the backbone and the infrastructure in all those countries.

QuidelOrtho went from zero to 16 million tests per week with QuickVue as well as millions of tests per week with COVID. “We were one of the first companies in the market with a PCR test,” Bryant said. “We clearly didn’t have the manufacturing capacity to compete, but we built it. We had a head start with QuickVue, but we were competing with some big companies who had scale already. That was transformational.”

QuidelOrtho’s people started believing in their capability. “We took a company that was small and got in the ring against the big guys,” Bryant said. “We got big quickly. With the cash we had on hand and our ability to access capital markets, we’ve been able to pull this off pretty nicely.”