Year: 2013-14

Company: Thermo Fisher Scientific

Liaison(s): Vicki Singer

Life Technologies Corporation (Life Tech), now the Life Science Solutions Group of ThermoFisher Scientific, is a global biotechnology business dedicated to improving the human condition. Life Tech provides a wide variety of tools designed to assist the life science community and is a global leader in genetic analysis through its real-time PCR (qPCR), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms. Molecular diagnostic labs face difficult decisions regarding which platforms to choose for testing of different diseases (e.g. cancer, inherited diseases, etc.) and clinical indications (e.g. screening, diagnosis, staging, therapeutic choice, etc.). These decisions are further complicated by an industry that is undergoing drastic changes including the introduction of new technology and a complete overhaul of the reimbursement system. This Team Master’s Project aimed to better understand the needs and the decisionmaking process of diagnostic testing laboratories regarding qPCR, CE, and NGS platforms. In order to understand how these laboratories make decisions, the KGI team conducted extensive research. The team began by consulting secondary sources such as scientific literature and market research reports to gain an understanding of the industry. This knowledge was used to structure interviews with key opinion leaders, which provided the team with a qualitative understanding of their thought processes. Based on these results, the team constructed and administered a survey to labs across the country to obtain actionable, quantitative data. These results helped the team develop a strategy to guide Life Tech in their efforts to effectively market these platforms to the most applicable sectors of the molecular diagnostics industry.