Two recent announcements by Thermo Fisher Scientific illustrate the company’s commitment to its diagnostics business. Diagnostics is not a new market for the company but, as the news made clear, it is one in which the company has a solid position and one for which it is investing in research.

Revenue for Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Specialty Diagnostic business totaled $2,149.0 million last year (see page 12). In August, Thermo added to the business when it closed the purchase of Phadia (see IBO 5/31/11), a developer of blood tests, which had 2010 revenues of $525 million. Earlier this month, Thermo announced that, starting in the third quarter, it will separately report the financial results of its Specialty Diagnostics business, which was previously part of the Analytical Technologies segment.

The new Specialty Diagnostics segments will be comprised of the Anatomical Pathology, Clinical Diagnostics, Microbiology, ImmunoDiagnostics and Healthcare Marketing Channel businesses. Previously, the company reported financial results in two segments: Analytical Technologies, of which Specialty Diagnostics was a part, and Laboratory Products and Services. The Analytical Technologies segment will now consist of the Analytical Instruments and Biosciences businesses, and the Laboratory Products and Services will be comprised of the Laboratory Products, Research and Safety Market Channels, and BioPharma Services businesses.

A month earlier, Thermo announced the formation of the Biomarker Translation Center (BT Center) that will utilize the expertise of the company’s Biomarkers Research Initiative in Mass Spectrometry (BRIMS) Center (see IBO 8/31/11) and its BRAHMS business. BRIMS has a history of MS-based research for biomarker discovery and verification in collaboration with outside researchers and companies. Acquired by Thermo in 2009 (see IBO 9/15/09), BRAHMS provides regulated immunoassay-based tests utilizing the protein-biomarker procalcitonin for diagnosing cases of sepsis related to bacterial infections.

The BT Center is conducting research on new biomarkers for BRAHMS that could potentially be commercialized as diagnostic tests. According to Bryan Krastins, group leader at the BT Center, research is currently focused on three areas: infectious disease, prenatal and cardiovascular biomarkers. Mary Lopez, PhD, BRIMS director, told IBO, “On the infectious side, BRAHMS has been very focused on sepsis, so one of the first things we’ll do is look into markers of that area.” An example of such research that she cited is the use of a biomarker for detecting an infection following surgery.

The discovery of biomarkers for prenatal testing is not a new area for BRIMS. Working with Kypros Nicolaides of the Fetal Monitoring Foundation, last year BRIMS published a paper on biomarkers for Trisomy 21, a form of Down syndrome. “We published the discovery of 18 different markets and the development of targeted SRM (selective reaction monitoring)–based assays using MS for those markers,” said Dr. Lopez. Mr. Krastins told IBO that he expects the first results of the biomarker research for infectious disease and prenatal testing to be available in about a year.

The translational research capabilities of Thermo’s BRIMS are unique among companies, according to Dr. Lopez, and are a result of the company’s broad capabilities and breadth of technologies. “We sort act as a hub in a way, or a node, to connect a lot of different parts of Thermo,” she explained.