“We are one of the largest in vitro diagnostics companies in the world,” President Julie Sawyer-Montgomery told the Business Journal.
“When anything comes up in the world that has a diagnostic need, we naturally feel responsible to act, and that was certainly the case with the pandemic.”
Beckman, the Brea-based independent operating company of Washington D.C.-based Danaher Corp., has an installed base of 100,000 analyzers around the world and estimates about half a billion tests are performed on its equipment every week.
Beckman, one of Orange County’s largest medical companies, in March sent its local workforce of about 850 employees to work from home. Collaboration never stopped among its 11,000 associates worldwide, Sawyer-Montgomery said.
It received emergency use authorization for its first COVID antibody test in June and launched a COVID antigen test with the aim to increase daily testing capacity in the U.S. by 40% in December.
With the emergence of new COVID variants and the rollout of vaccines, testing remains a central component of defeating the coronavirus, Sawyer-Montgomery said.
“We need to move from what is largely happening now—symptomatic testing—to a more serial, population-based testing of employers, K-12, universities and such to better control the virus,” she said.
“We believe our antigen test is the key to mass-scale testing.”
Barriers Addressed
Beckman’s latest product, a COVID antigen test that goes to laboratories for just $4 apiece, was designed to address several testing barriers, Sawyer-Montgomery said.
The U.S. performs about 2 million COVID diagnostic tests per day, which is about 10-50% of those recommended by experts, according to Beckman.
PCR and antigen tests detect genetic material or molecules that imply active viral infection. Antibody tests, by comparison, detect the presence of antibodies as a result of prior infection.
PCR tests, considered the “gold standard” of diagnostics because of their high sensitivity, have several disadvantages when it comes to mass testing. Tests are more expensive and sent out to centralized testing labs, resulting in 24- to 48-hour turnaround times, according to Sawyer-Montgomery.
By contrast, antigen tests are affordable; automated and can produce results in as little as 30 minutes, she said.
“Beckman Coulter can make 25 million antigen tests a month and essentially increase the number of reported tests in the nation by 40%,” Sawyer-Montgomery said.
“And we can do it at a very affordable price—just $4 per antigen test at a workflow that is highly scalable.”
Beckman’s antigen assay has proven 93% positive percent agreement within seven days of symptom onset and 100% negative percent agreement.
Incoming President
Sawyer-Montgomery was named president of Beckman last January.
She previously led Beckman’s $2 billion developed markets business across North America, Europe and Latin America, as well as global marketing, research and development for the firm.
Prior to joining Beckman, the Harvard Business School alumna—who also has a master of music degree in viola performance—held marketing and business development positions at Hospira Infusion Systems (now part of ICU Medical) and Boston Scientific.
Sawyer-Montgomery last January traveled to China for business and on her way home via a connection in Portugal, received a call from her China general manager, who described the outbreak of an unknown virus as “different” and “unusual.”
“Being part of a global company helped us understand some of the implications a bit earlier because [COVID] wasn’t part of the national dialogue yet,” Sawyer-Montgomery said.
“That got us clued into following the scientific dialogue closely and beginning those early discussions for where our technology could plug in.”
Expedited Process
When Beckman sent its employees to work from home, “like many companies, we held our breath to see how that would work,” Sawyer-Montgomery said.
“It was an experiment we’d never tried before, but our team members showed amazing resilience in adapting very quickly and I’d say we didn’t miss a beat.”
Associates set up from home and became extremely familiar with Microsoft Teams. Leadership instituted daily management calls to set and stretch goals and move to meet them quickly.
Beckman developed its first COVID antibody test, which measures IgG antibodies, in just seven weeks and received emergency use authorization for the product in June.
These types of products generally take 15 months to three years to get to market, Sawyer-Montgomery said.
“The level of passion, problem solving and global collaboration between our research and development teams and operations associates to innovate new assays and bring them to market in such record time made me very proud,” she said.
Associates were encouraged to develop multiple prototypes at once, rather than working on one prototype at a time.
“That way of thinking made our teams more agile and nimble through this process. That’s also a really fun way of working, and we want to apply that way of working to everything that we do.”
Essential Work
Diagnostics has always been critical to the healthcare system; tests inform 70% of medical decisions. That fact has become more apparent amid the pandemic, Sawyer-Montgomery said.
“I still get chills when I think about those early, early days—seeing the pictures of our China team, followed by our Italian team—our people suiting up and going into labs to install or fix equipment to keep hospitals running,” she said.
“Our associates understand how critical what we do is to the functioning of the healthcare system. Without our equipment, emergency rooms shut down. You can’t do the diagnostics you need. Seeing our people gown up, mask up, and going into hospitals when we didn’t understand the disease was very powerful.”
Beckman has seen its engagement levels among associates rise throughout the last year, in part because of their role in tackling the pandemic, she added.
“Our associates are essential workers. It feels good to be essential to something so critical,” she said.
Sawyer-Montgomery said she also believes the pandemic will have a long-term impact on the diagnostics industry.
“When your industry is on the front-page of a newspaper every day, I think it makes people understand how critical laboratory medicine really is. As a result, I think we’ll continue to see increased investment in diagnostic laboratories.”
