Singapore: Perkin Elmer, a global leading service provider for the biosciences industry, announced the opening of a new medical laboratory in Suzhou, China. The inauguration ceremony was attended by over 130 local government officials, key opinion leaders, medical research professionals, and academicians.

Perkin Elmer is an industry leader in neonatal, prenatal and infectious disease screening through its comprehensive portfolio of instruments, kits and software. The Suzhou Perkin Elmer Medical Laboratory will include a wide range of solutions for customers and patients like molecular cytogenetics detection, screening for inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs), and viral loads testing.

Mr Xu-ming Bian, Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said, "China's newborn population exceeds 16 million per year and the government is increasingly focused on investing in maternity and child care institutions for preventing birth defects."

Mr Johnson Zhang, vice president and general manager, diagnostics, Asia-Pacific, for PerkinElmer, said, "China continues to strive to improve the efficiency of prenatal and neonatal screening, develop innovative, rapid prenatal diagnosis technology to detect chromosomal disorders, and expand access to infectious disease screening testing. As the global leader for prenatal and neonatal screening and infectious disease detection, we have strong relationships -some which have lasted for over 20 years - with more than 400 prenatal and neonatal screening centers and over 2,000 infectious disease screening laboratories across China."

Perkin Elmer also plans to expand its diagnostics services to tumor testing and introduce new applications based on molecular cytogenetic platforms such as sequencing technology. The company said in a statement that the lab would also help academics and clinical medical doctors to perform scientific R&D, collaborate and train colleagues, and transform medical research into the development of new technologies for clinical use.