While large corporations in Indiana capture headlines as the state wages war against COVID-19, small companies are combining efforts to form a mighty force as well. Fishers-based Quantigen Biosciences is among many in Indiana that have pivoted the purpose of laboratories, pushing COVID-19 projects to the top priority.

Founded in 2008, Quantigen is a small specialty contract research organization that partners with the pharmaceutical and biotech industries; the company has expertise in developing new test methods to analyze any genetic material, such as DNA or RNA. Chief Executive Officer Jami Elliott says this could be for genetic tests involving infectious disease, oncology and inherited diseases. This expertise, combined with the “fast and nimble work” that Elliott says is characteristic of small CROs, has opened the door to several COVID-19 related projects.

Like other labs in Indiana—both small and large—Quantigen is helping swell the number of COVID-19 tests that can be analyzed each day.

“We’re scaling our own COVID-19 diagnostic testing here. We aren’t high throughput, which would be about 1,000 or more samples per day,” says Elliott, who is also the founder and owner of Quantigen. “We have the machine capacity to do a lot of samples; the instrumentation available today allows for small and mid-size labs to participate meaningfully during periods like COVID-19. The instrumentation has tremendous capacity and can generate several thousand results per day, but we need staffing to get to results. [Quantigen] is working with a partner to explore areas of staffing, because the staffing related to getting more sample throughput is really, really tricky.”  

In partnership with large biotech companies, Quantigen is taking part in studies that are evaluating how other types of equipment that are more readily available in the market could be used to help relieve the bottleneck of COVID-19 testing.

It’s widely known that the U.S. has also been plagued by supply shortages in many facets related to battling the pandemic—among them, says Elliott, is a specific type of cotton swab used to test people for COVID-19. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the small company has been working at a feverish pace for weeks to determine if other swabs are reliable substitutes for the current type that is in short supply.

“There are other kinds of swabs available, they’ve just never been tested for robustness, and the FDA wants to see that kind of testing done before it allows [the swabs] to be used,” says Elliott. “We’re assessing multiple different swab types—and even the possibility of methods like home collection to keep sick people out of clinics—so we’ll have more access to a broader array of swab types that are more manufacturable and more readily available. We’re supporting the analysis of clinical samples for studies that will be presented to the FDA to broaden the availability of different swab types for COVID-19 testing.”

Elliott believes small, specialty CROs have been able to show their unique value during the country’s response to the pandemic, and he’s confident that value is far-reaching, well beyond Indiana. He says compared to the West and East coasts—"the most expensive places in the world to do development work”—Indiana is gaining recognition as a cost-effective alternative. He says the pattern of pharmaceutical giants outsourcing research and development work to China and Singapore is slowing, as the “cost of doing quality research [there] is going up.”

“[The Midwest] has earned a great reputation in biotech as a nimble and cost-effective alternative. We pay people here above industry standard for the work they do, and we live in an area where that wage is very livable,” says Elliott. “This corridor between Ohio and Indiana—and points a little east and west of here—is an untapped space of affordability and intellectual talent. I think there could be a reemergence of the Midwest as a provider of R&D for companies and a region excellence. I think we’ve done a lot in moving that conversation forward. I think there’s a lot more to do.”

Elliot says the coronavirus pandemic is a “democratizing moment,” as the industry is more open than ever to different solutions; traditionally, he believes healthcare would rely on a few defined modes to support diagnostics.

“But I think in the COVID universe, discussion is really opening up, and there’s a request for all hands on deck,” says Elliott. “It’s a strange time. The need is so great in healthcare; it’s opened up a lot of discussions that had been fostering for some time about participation of a broader array of laboratory sizes.”

Elliott is unsure how it will change the landscape after COVID-19, but he’s hopeful small labs like Quantigen have earned a stronger voice in the conversation.

By Kylie Veleta, Business of Health Reporter & Special Projects Editor | Inside INdiana Business