DOCTORS Co., Ltd., (head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Takao Yanagawa; hereinafter referred to as “DOCTORS”), together with medi transe Co., Ltd., (head office: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Atsuhiko Kato; hereinafter referred to as “medi transe”), has newly launched Doctors Laboratory (hereinafter referred to as “Doctors Lab”) as a clinical laboratory to begin a medical-related laboratory testing business.
Doctors Lab（https://lab.doctors-inc.jp/）will provide higher value-added testing service for companies, organizations, and administrations by integrating and aligning DOCTORS’ accumulated knowledge in the medical consultation business and know-how of the PCR testing service and medi transe’s implementation of the quality and laboratory testing system as a clinical laboratory.
With the start of this business, we will revise the prices of our postal PCR testing service from 1:00 p.m. today on April 23. We appreciate it if you would use our service for checking health conditions and as measures against the spread of infection.
■Background
Currently vaccinations are progressing in Japan after more than one year since the spread of COVID-19. Nevertheless, it is still expected to take a long time to complete vaccinations of the target population. Moreover, because of the expansion of the fourth wave, quasi-emergency coronavirus measures have taken effect in multiple areas, and a state of emergency has been declared in some prefectures. As such, it is difficult to move around and go out as usual. While there are concerns about the impact on industries, especially the tourism and food and beverage industries, the awareness of countermeasures is growing throughout all of society in the time of COVID-19.
Under such circumstances, DOCTORS and medi transe have launched Doctors Lab. By beginning the medical-related testing business, we have decided to quickly establish a high-quality, reliable, safe, and inexpensive PCR testing system, which is regarded as an urgent need, and as the first round, we will promote testing support in the time of COVID-19 for companies and government administrations.
We are planning to expand the target of testing in the future.
■Purpose of this partnership and the two companies’ roles
The delay and lack of a PCR testing system by government administrations continues, and the implementation procedures and the accuracy control by private business operators and clinics in each area are not yet sufficient. Aiming to solve these issues, medi transe, which is vastly experienced in testing under contracts by government administrations and medical institutions and specimen transportation, and DOCTORS, which has deep knowledge of telemedicine and digital healthcare, will be combined to start this business so that the two companies will quickly support the maintenance and improvement of service users’ business continuity systems by combining PCR testing whose quality is as high as that of medical institutions with medical and healthcare support by expert doctors.
■Highly reliable testing system
To enable us to provide quality as high as that of medical institutions for this project, we will not only register Doctors Lab as a clinical laboratory but also conduct testing according to the Manual for the Detection of Pathogens of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases by laboratory technicians with many years of experience. In addition, we use equipment and reagents for these tests, which are highly trusted by healthcare professionals, and we acknowledge that our PCR Testing Center is one of the best in Japan since it achieves quality as high as that of medical institutions from specimen collection system through the tests.
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Laboratory equipment to be used: LightCycler® 96 System (Roche)
Reagent to be used: Ampdirect™2019-nCov detection kit (Shimadzu)
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[Details of this PCR testing service and the revised prices]
In addition to the postal PCR testing service that DOCTORS has been providing for companies and organizations, we will start a visit-and-collection-based PCR testing service. We will provide all processes with quality as high as that of medical institutions from specimen collection to test results reports. Therefore, even administrative organizations, such as prefectures and municipalities, can rely on our system to request tests at ease.
We have revised prices along with the launch of Doctors Lab. Because prices are more affordable now, our testing service can be used to check an individual’s health condition when returning home or going on a business trip. Corporate clients can also apply for this service because it can be used to check sales representatives at branches before visiting customers.
Please check the following website of Doctors Lab for details.
| Old price | New price | |
| For a single test | 9,680 yen (tax included) | 8,800 yen (tax included) |
| For five tests/set | 44,000 yen (tax included) | 41,250 yen (tax included) |
| For ten tests/set | 82,500 yen (tax included) | 77,000 yen (tax included) |
*Negative certificate against COVID-19 can be issued at partner medical institutions with a separate fee.
Click here for details of Doctors Lab, and the application for postal PCR testing.
[Overview of medi transe Co., Ltd.]
Company name: medi transe Co., Ltd.
Representative: Atsuhiko Kato, CEO
Location: 1-4-7 Kitashinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0074
Establishment: Year 2011
Business description: Engaged in the transportation of medical specimens, clinical testing service entrusted from medical institutions, medical media business, and private emergency services as a specialized logistic company that guarantees accuracy, which has been difficult to achieve in the medical field, by building expertise based on knowledge and experience of clinical laboratory technicians.
URL：http://www.meditranse.co.jp/
[About DOCTORS]
Company name: DOCTORS Co., Ltd.
Representative: Takao Yanagawa, President & CEO
Head office: 5F PMO Hamamatsucho II, 2-3-6 Shibakoen, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0011 Japan
Date of establishment: September 2016 (Started business in October 2019)
Business description: Providing various services, including Doctors Cloud™ for supporting companies in the commercialization of digital healthcare services, Doctors Next™ for comprehensively supporting medical DX and digital healthcare service for doctors, and Doctors Station™ for supporting medical-collaborative telemedicine service that supports patients’ behavior before medical examination, by making use of the network of active expert doctors (more than approximately 400 doctors as of today) based on its own guidelines.
