May 26, 2021
How An Ann Arbor Prostate Cancer Testing Startup Became One of the State’s Biggest COVID Test Labs
Lynx Dx was formed by a group of highly credentialed, renowned clinical leaders from the University of Michigan’s urology department in 2015. They were driven by their experience treating prostate cancer patients at Michigan Medicine to improve prostate cancer screening. In 2020, The Department of Urology at Michigan University ranked 2 in NIH Rankings, reflecting the importance of scientifically curious and innovative research.
At the time of beginning to launch a company supporting a better solution for the detection of prostate cancer, the COVID-19 pandemic began. The founders, Yashar Niknafs and Arul Chinnaiyan, realized that their research was ideal for supporting large scale COVID-19 testing.
“We were in an interesting spot because the prostate test and the COVID test — they’re technologically almost the same. You’re just measuring markers in urine versus saliva,” says Niknafs. “At that time, every other news article was about the lack of COVID testing in the country. So we thought, ‘Let’s see what we can do.'”
In the process of rapidly deploying COVID-19 testing capabilities to address their communities’ needs, Lynx Dx created a lab testing powerhouse. As one of the nation’s leading COVID-19 testing labs, Lynx Dx boasts world-class versatility and scalability, testing capabilities and personnel.