At the outset of the state’s coronavirus response, just a handful of Wisconsin labs were running COVID-19 tests, averaging about 1,500 to 2,000 tests per day.
As the state Department of Health Services worked to ramp up its capacity in the early weeks of the pandemic’s spread, three Madison-area executives put their heads together to help the cause.
In March, Kevin Conroy, chairman and chief executive officer of Madison-based cancer diagnostics company Exact Sciences; Judy Faulkner, CEO of Verona-based electronic medical records company Epic Systems; and Bill Linton, chairman and CEO of Fitchburg-based life sciences supplier Promega, strategized about how they could turn around more testing – a key component of the state’s effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
At Exact Sciences, that meant reprogramming equipment that ordinarily looks for DNA associated with colorectal cancer to instead look for novel coronavirus. The company produces and runs tests for Cologuard, a noninvasive, at-home screening that detects the presence of colon cancer in stool samples.
By reconfiguring its lab, the company created capacity to process roughly 20,000 COVID-19 tests weekly.
Meanwhile, Promega has supplied the reagents, ingredients that have been in short supply and are needed to run COVID-19 tests on Exact Sciences’ machines. Epic layered on software capabilities needed to transfer test results from the lab to state officials and health care providers.
For each of the companies, the rapid response meant completing tasks that normally would take months in a matter of weeks.
In early May, Gov. Tony Evers said Wisconsin’s capacity for COVID-19 testing had reached 85,000 tests per week – the threshold included in his Badger Bounce Back plan to reopen the state – and credited the state’s public-private partnerships.
“None of this would have been possible without leadership from the state of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Clinical Lab Network, and the herculean efforts of each company’s teams,” said Conroy. “Our employees worked around the clock, knowing the long hours they put in could be the difference between life and death for our friends, neighbors and family members.”
