Strand Life Sciences receives CAP re-accreditation for its personalized genomics centre

Bengaluru: Strand Life Sciences, India’s leading genomic profiling and bioinformatics company, has been awarded accreditation by the Accreditation Committee of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), an internationally recognized organization for quality assurance in diagnostics for the Strand Centre for Personalized Genomics in Bengaluru. One of the foremost state of the art labs for genetic testing in India, is one amongst the 7,700 CAP-accredited facilities across the world.

The federal government of the United States of America recognizes the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program to be equal to or more stringent than the government’s own inspection program. The primary goal for the CAP accreditation is patient safety and prevention of medical malpractice. The CAP accreditation process is designed to ensure the highest standards of operations for all laboratory procedures.

A CAP-accredited lab’s records and quality control procedures, followed for two years, are checked thoroughly by the inspectors at the time of the inspection. CAP inspectors also examine laboratory staff qualifications, equipment, facilities, safety programs, safety record as well as overall management prior to awarding the accreditation to any organization.

“In order to maintain the high standards that are expected by CAP, we conduct a voluntary process audit every 6 months to ensure consistent and accurate analyses. It also ensures that we maintain quality control at every step in the workflow and use CAP-validated bioinformatics and analytics protocols to provide diagnostic solutions to all patients. Safety and accuracy are our primary objectives,” said Dr Satish Sankaran, Vice President – Clinical Operations and Laboratory Director – Clinical Lab, Strand Life Sciences.

“Our tests have been benchmarked against global competitors and found to be at par by an independent agency. Moreover, implementation of CAP guidelines shows reduction of methodological errors by 35% in clinical research settings. The Strand Centre for Genomics and Personalized Medicine received the CAP accreditation in 2015 and the same has been reaffirmed in 2017,” said Dr Vijay Chandru, Chairman and Managing Director, Strand Life Sciences.