Clinical Enterprise Inc., a member of the Eurofins Clinical Diagnostic group of companies, is extending its partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to continue supporting the Operation Expanded Testing program with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Defense. The partnership will continue until December 31, 2022.
 
Operation Expanded Testing provides fully federally funded COVID-19 testing to K-12 schools, Historically Black Colleges & Universities, early childhood learning centers, and other congregate settings like correctional facilities, long-term care communities and homeless shelters.
 
By serving vulnerable populations and under-resourced communities, the program aims to promote equity in COVID-19 testing and mitigation. Through this extended partnership, Operation Expanded Testing will continue serving over 1,800 different organizations across the Northeast and South regions of the United States.
 
Clinical Enterprise has worked with Ginkgo Bioworks through its biosecurity and public health initiative, Concentric by Ginkgo, to provide testing services that can help detect asymptomatic infections to reduce transmission, prevent outbreaks, and protect vulnerable populations.
 
“Through this ongoing partnership with Clinical Enterprise, we’ve been able to equip community leaders with tools they can use to generate the information they need to protect the most vulnerable members of their communities,” said Matt McKnight, general manager for Biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. “We are proud to be building a testing and monitoring platform to empower local communities to make timely and targeted interventions to defend against infection.”
 
To date, Clinical Enterprise has enrolled under the Other Transaction agreement (OTA) schools and organizations in 26 states in the Northeast and South regions, as well as Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.