Have Trust in Science: It’s How We Will Beat COVID-19

I had the good fortune to celebrate Mother’s Day this year in person with my mother. I realize that wasn’t the case for many. Some mothers are in nursing homes or unable to travel because of stay-at-home guidelines. Still others have been lost to COVID-19. Amidst the uncertainty, we are all redoubling our efforts to protect the people we love and the global community. For me, that means pursuing critical advancements in science.

For more than 30 years, science – and particularly science in the service of people’s health – has been core to my career and my life. As CEO of LabCorp, a life sciences company with 65,000 employees, it’s clear to me that science is our path out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are putting science to work every day in countless ways, advancing research and knowledge, and caring for those in their communities. Doctors and nurses are being rightfully acknowledged as heroes. When we’ve needed them most, these people have risen to every occasion.

I see it every day at LabCorp. Across an array of jobs, our employees focus on diagnostics and drug development. Our phlebotomists exhibit compassion and skill at our patient service centers and our couriers carefully transport specimens. Our scientists and operations teams are working around the clock to develop and distribute reliable tests by the millions, and our drug development teams are working with our pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients to pioneer treatments and vaccines.

I am awed by their commitment and the progress we’ve made in a compressed timeframe. As COVID-19 spread in early 2020, we were the first commercial lab to receive Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA for a diagnostic test and for an at-home collection kit for that test. As a science-driven company, we went to market only after meeting our own rigorous quality standards.

We continue to advance access and availability to testing, which is critical to saving lives. As the virus began spreading in the U.S., we ramped up testing capacity from zero to about 2 million COVID-19 tests per month. By June, we’ll have the ability to perform about 100,000 PCR tests and 300,000 antibody tests a day, furthering diagnosis, research and tracing efforts. Every day, we’re developing new approaches to diagnostic testing. 

Knowing we can’t do this alone, we’re using our scientific capabilities to make advancements that will help now and in the future. For example, our teams are working with CIOX Health on a groundbreaking COVID-19 patient data registry that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence along with human expertise to help researchers improve the treatment and prevention of COVID-19.  

We are working with Adaptive Biotechnologies and Microsoft on the ImmuneRACE Study, a decentralized trial to better understand the immune response to the virus, for which patient recruitment is now underway. We're also working with Pacific Biosciences to use their sequencing technology to support more informed patient treatment decisions.

We are part of a community of mission-driven, science-based organizations. Around the world, scientists and researchers are working to control and ultimately defeat the virus. Fueled by the urgency of the mission, they are moving at a remarkable pace. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers around the country are doing the hard work of hands-on care. This mission-driven community – and the genuine desire to help others that fuels it – offers a model for the world.

We are in the midst of a sad, profoundly disturbing and unprecedented crisis. We are surrounded by loss. We have lost LabCorp employees, and millions of people around the world have lost family and friends. The social and economic structures that anchor our lives have been altered irrevocably.

While the future is murky, one thing is clear. We must trust science. We are already seeing breakthrough innovations in science and technology. We must continue to follow social distancing protocols, practice good hygiene and advance track and trace capabilities to slow the spread of the virus while the scientific community develops treatments and ultimately a vaccine. I have no doubt that the innovative pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and community will find a treatment and a vaccine. And in record time. It’s what they do and have always done. 

In the meantime, let’s take the time to thank the everyday heroes we rely on. When it matters most, these scientists, researchers, healthcare workers, first responders and other essential workers show up again and again.

Right now, we need to keep expanding our perspective and be both thoughtful and precise about how we move into the future. We must have trust in science, in the hard work and dedication of the people on the front lines, and in the public good. It is the only way forward.

Adam Schechter

President and CEO of LabCorp