Quest Diagnostics Granted CDC Contract to Support COVID-19 Infection and Vaccination Seroprevalence Research

Quest Diagnostics announced that it has been granted a contract by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to perform testing and provide laboratory data analysis to help identify patterns in SARS-COV-2 seroprevalence on a multistate basis. The goal is to aid the CDC in assessing the proportion of the population that has been infected by or vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Quest was awarded the contract following a competitive bid. The total contract value with all options is valued at up to approximately $19.5 million.

The new agreement extends and broadens the scope of the company’s contributions to the CDC’s seroprevalence research, which includes participating in the SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance (SPHERES) consortium. Quest will utilize serum specimen remnants from clinical testing for a range of non-COVID-19 conditions to identify immune response to SARS-CoV-2 using its comprehensive menu of COVID-19 serological tests. The company’s serological tests are authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use and aid in identifying antibodies produced in response to recent or prior infection and/or vaccination. Quest will provide the data analysis to the CDC in a HIPAA-compliant manner to support public health analysis and reporting.

“From the earliest days of the pandemic, public-private collaboration has been essential to effective response to the COVID-19 threat,” said Catherine T. Doherty, Senior Vice President, Group Executive – Clinical Franchise Solutions & Marketing, Quest Diagnostics. “Quest Diagnostics has a powerful combination of quality COVID-19 serological testing, national reach and robust data analytics to deliver insights to inform public health strategies. We are proud to bring these assets to the CDC’s efforts to track the nation’s vulnerability to COVID-19.”

Quest and the CDC have collaborated on several initiatives to improve population health analysis based on insights from Quest’s national testing data. In January 2021, the company formed an agreement to provide SARS-CoV-2 variant sequencing to help identify and track new variants. Quest and CDC have also collaborated on research to assess the pandemic’s impact on nonprescribed fentanyl use in individuals with opioid use disorder and hepatitis C screening and diagnostic trends.