ARUP’s new Innovation Central Laboratory will accelerate diagnostic innovation

University of Utah-based ARUP Laboratories, the largest nonprofit reference laboratory in the U.S., has announced the launch of its new Innovation Central Laboratory to facilitate collaboration with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other industry partners. 

The Innovation Central Laboratory will serve clients by validating technologies and accelerating next-generation diagnostics from concept to commercialization. 

“The Innovation Central Laboratory represents a bold step forward in diagnostic medicine,” said Dr. Tracy George, ARUP chief scientific officer and president of ARUP’s Innovation Business Unit. “By building and validating tests that are truly commercial-ready, we’re not just accelerating innovation; we’re ensuring that groundbreaking diagnostics can be adopted in real-world laboratories to improve patient care globally.”

Drawing from ARUP’s clinical, scientific and regulatory expertise and experience, the Innovation Central Laboratory provides an opportunity for biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners to collaborate with ARUP on early-stage exploration and refinement of novel diagnostic concepts outside of routine clinical workflows. ARUP offers a full suite of services and full life cycle management to help partners accelerate innovation and get products to market efficiently and effectively.

The launch of the Innovation Central Laboratory is the latest in a series of innovative developments by ARUP. In April 2025, ARUP launched a blood-based biomarker assay to determine whether cognitive decline symptoms in patients ages 60 years and older are related to Alzheimer’s disease pathology. ARUP has also partnered with Tasso Inc. to develop at-home blood testing services that will support clinical research. The laboratory is supporting a promising therapy for patients with nonadvanced systemic mastocytosis.

ARUP said that pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other industry entities are invited to collaborate with ARUP through the Central Innovation Laboratory to bring next-generation diagnostics from concept to commercialization. ARUP offers comprehensive services to support innovative health care solutions for industry partners, including custom assay development, clinical trial support, central pathology review, applied artificial intelligence and bioinformatics solutions.

Founded in 1984, ARUP Labs is a nonprofit enterprise of the University of Utah Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine and its Department of Pathology. It offers more than 3,000 tests and test combinations, ranging from routine screening tests to esoteric molecular and genetic assays.