Lessons Learned from the ADLM Meeting

Now that the ADLM meeting in Anaheim is done for 2023, I want to share with you my overall impressions and lessons learned from this meeting. Our company participated as an exhibitor showcasing both Applied InGENuity Diagnostics (ai_Diagnostics) and our spinoff company QUASR Diagnostics. In addition, I had the ability to sit through various scientific sessions.  These are my Lessons Learned (but in no particular order):

• Name Change – #AACC to #ADLM. This was a welcome aspect to the meeting.  Reflecting the change in diagnostics worldwide, a change from American Association of Clinical Chemistry to Association for Diagnostic and Laboratory Medicine was due. The new name represents that the association is more than clinical chemistry and should encompass a wider range of diagnostics technology and processes and also that the diagnostics community is global and not just regional.

• Missing Players – As you can imagine, most of the large diagnostic vendors were present but there were many large players like #Mindray that traditionally over the last few years had very large booths missing.
  • • Genomics Providers Missing – Despite a transition of diagnostics to using more advanced #Omics technologies, surprisingly the instrument providers for Next-Gen Sequencing were mostly absent.  There were many reagent suppliers for NGS but Illumina, Complete Genomics, Element Biosciences etc. were missing from the meeting. I am not sure if this represents a shift in the purpose of this meeting and the opportunities for lead generation.
    • Independent Labs – Related to the point above, we were one of the few independent laboratories at the meeting. Many independent, regional and large diagnostic laboratories were missing. My impression is that given the changing landscape of diagnostics related to reimbursement and billing that most labs decided that other venues for lead generation were better than this meeting.

• Decentralized Healthcare – The largest takeaway from this meeting was the number of companies working on #PointofCare, #POC devices, assays and technologies. The COVID19 pandemic clearly impressed upon the world that the paradigm of diagnostics with the use of centralized laboratories did not meet the needs of the consumer and as such there is growing emphasis on decentralized diagnostic capabilities with a focus on POC products.  Based on this meeting, I see that there will be a large number of applications for CLIA waivers for devices and products in the next two years. I was also impressed by the rapid pace of innovation and the creativity of various POC devices being developed.
  • • POC product commercialization – As many of these #POC device manufacturers were non-US based companies, it also became apparent that very few of them had an understanding of the pathway for commercialization of their devices and products in the US. I believe many of them were under the impression that the processes during the COVID19 pandemic that allowed for rapid clearance through the EUA pathway would still be in place.

• AI in Diagnostics – In previous years, there were a plethora of scientific sessions using AI models for predictive diagnostics. Essentially, if the data could be digitized, everyone had a model that was better than pathologists, radiologists or human based interpretation. Although there were similar scientific sessions, I think the vast number of models and systems developed have now realized that building the assays was not as difficult as implementing the assays.

AlyssaC

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