The story
Cepheid was founded in March 1996 by Thomas Gutshall, Bill McMillan, Dr. Kurt Petersen, Dr. Greg Kovacs, Steven Young and Dr. Allen Northrup. The company's first CEO was Tom Gutshall, who held the position from 1996 to 2002.
The key engineering innovations underlying GeneXpert technologies, as well as early versions of the product and field testing, were done at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the University of California. It was funded by the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) program of the DARPA and the U.S. Army, as well as through LLNL's internal budget.
In 2000, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.
By 2001, Cepheid received $15 million in funding from the United States Department of Defense, its primary source of funding at that time.
During the 2001 anthrax attacks, U.S. federal agencies contracted with Cepheid to track the anthrax. In 2003, the company put a temporary hold on some healthcare development to work with defense contractor, Northrop Grumman, on a U.S. federal government contract to install anthrax detection systems at US Post Office sites nationwide.
In April 2002, John L. Bishop was appointed CEO; he remained CEO until the company was sold in 2016.
Cepheid won the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards for its product, Reagent Bead Dispenser.
The first clinical application for the GeneXpert System was introduced in 2006 with the U.S. FDA clearance of XpertGBS, a rapid molecular diagnostic test for Group B Streptococcus in pregnant women.
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In August 2006, XpertGBS was categorized by the FDA as "Moderate Complexity" under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). It was the first amplified molecular diagnostic test using real-time PCR to receive this categorization. This allowed the test to be performed by the over 27,000 institutions registered for CLIA Moderate Complexity in addition to the approximately 7,000 institutions registered for High Complexity tests.
In February 2007, the company acquired Sangtec Molecular for $27 million.
In September 2007, Cepheid won a contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for its MRSA reagent test kits.
In June 2014, the company partnered with AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals to develop a rapid diagnostic test that can target multidrug-resistant pathogens to help doctors appropriately prescribe antibiotics.
In November 2016, Danaher Corporation acquired the company for $4 billion.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cepheid partnered with Sherlock Biosciences in February 2020 to begin development of a CRISPR-based diagnostic test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, to run on the same machines as Cepheid's 20-year-old GeneXpert tests, as there were machines already installed in hospitals.
In March 2020, the company announced a rapid diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2; the U.S. FDA granted an emergency use authorization for the test. The diagnostic is designed to run on any of the (over 23,000) existing Cepheid GeneXpert machines worldwide, with the standard 45 minute detection time.
In October 2024, the World Health Organization granted emergency use authorization to Cepheid for its mpox in-vitro diagnostic test.
From Wikipedia’s article on Cepheid (company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4