LIMS Unpacked (3 of 4): LIMS vs COVID

4 people processing upto 8,000 tests per day. Meanwhile, down the road: 1,000 faxes typed by hand. Same pandemic. Very different outcomes.

Previously, the LIMS Unpacked series covered what a LIMS is and the origins of several LIMS software. Today, we'll look in depth at an example of why LIMS is so important.

COVID-19 was the ultimate stress test for laboratory systems worldwide. Some labs scaled beautifully. Others collapsed under the weight of fax machines and spreadsheets.

✅ What Worked

Thermo Fisher: From email to FDA-authorized test in 62 days

On January 11, 2020, an internal email asked if a test could be built to detect the new coronavirus [1]. By March 13, the FDA had authorized Thermo Fisher's TaqPath COVID-19 test, and they already had 1.5 million tests ready to ship [2].

Their Amplitude Solution — powered by SampleManager LIMS — could process upto 8,000 COVID tests in 24 hours with just 4 full-time staff [3]. The LIMS handled sample tracking, workflow routing, result capture, and automated validation. Humans barely touched it [4].

Peak manufacturing: 20+ million tests per week [5].

LabWare: Tracking Pfizer's vaccine across 19 countries

Pfizer's COVID vaccine required 280 components from 86 suppliers in 19 countries [6]. The manufacturing process initially took 110 days from start to finish, but was soon shortened by 50% [7]. The plasmid vials, batches, and quality tests were all tracked in LabWare LIMS [8].

To avoid delays in manufacturing, Pfizer sometimes used its company jet and helicopter to transport DNA between facilities. LabWare tracked every movement automatically [9].

Scale: 3 billion doses manufactured in 2021 alone [7].

LabVantage: The military's choice for vaccine production

In October 2020, LabVantage won a U.S. Government contract to supply LIMS to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research — the military's own vaccine production facility [10]. 

They also created a purpose-built COVID biobanking LIMS, which can go-live in weeks, not months [11].

When the Department of Defense needed to track and store thousands of biological samples for vaccine research, LabVantage was the system they trusted to do it.

❌ What Failed

While LIMS-powered labs processed thousands of tests per hour, other parts of the system drowned:

England

Public Health England tracked results in Excel. The old file format had a row limit of 65,536. When data exceeded it, rows were silently dropped. 15,841 positive cases vanished. This meant tens of thousands of close contacts were not promptly told to self-isolate [12]. A £22 billion test-and-trace programme, undone by a spreadsheet [13].

Texas

In Austin, staff manually typed 1,000+ faxed results per day into a database. Backlog: 7–10 days. Contact tracing became ineffective [14]. In Houston, a fax machine was so overwhelmed it sprayed hundreds of pages of results across the floor [15]. When they finally automated, nearly 14,000 backlogged cases hit the count in one day [16].

Japan

Hospitals were primarily handwriting COVID case forms and faxing them to health centres [17]. It took about 3 days for a case to be reported [18]. One doctor called it "Showa period stuff" (pre-1989 Japan) [17]. Soon the government launch an online replacement. However, by April 2022 only about two thirds of covid cases were reported with this online system [19].

The Lesson

LIMS enables labs to automate, track, and scale when demand grows suddenly. Without it, manual processes quickly become a bottleneck.

If you're interested in learning more about using LIMS or any other informatics tool in your lab, book a meeting with us!

Sources

[1] Thermo Fisher Scientific. Developing a COVID-19 Diagnostic Test. https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/clinical-conversations/developing-covid-19-diagnostic-test/

[2] Thermo Fisher Scientific Investor Relations. FDA Issued Emergency Use Authorization to Thermo Fisher Scientific for Diagnostic Test Used to Detect COVID-19 on March 13, 2020. https://ir.thermofisher.com/investors/news-events/news/news-details/2020/FDA-Issued-Emergency-Use-Authorization-to-Thermo-Fisher-Scientific-for-Diagnostic-Test-Used-to-Detect-COVID-19-on-March-13-2020-3-16/default.aspx

[3] Thermo Fisher Scientific. Efficient Molecular Testing Solution for COVID-19. https://www.medical-xprt.com/services/thermo-fisher-scientific-efficient-molecular-testing-solution-for-covid-19-754084

[4] Thermo Fisher Scientific. Amplitude™ TaqPath™ COVID-19 HT IVD Instructions for Use. https://documents.thermofisher.com/TFS-Assets/LSG/manuals/MAN0019428_Amplitude_TaqPath_COVID-19_HT_IFU_IVD.pdf

[5] Thermo Fisher Scientific. COVID-19 Testing Solutions: Addressing Challenges and Pain Points in the Laboratory. https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/clinical-conversations/covid-19-testing-solutions-addressing-challenges-and-pain-points-in-the-laboratory/

[6] Warne, N., Ruesch, M., Siwik, P. et al. Delivering 3 Billion Doses of Comirnaty in 2021. Nature Biotechnology, 41, 183-188 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01643-1

[7] Pfizer. Expanding COVID-19 Manufacturing Efforts. https://www.pfizer.com/sites/default/files/investors/financial_reports/annual_reports/2021/story/expanding-covid-manufacturing-efforts/

[8] LabWare. Pfizer COVID Vaccine Manufacturing and LIMS. https://www.labware.com/blog/pfizer-covid-vaccine-manufacturing-lims

[9] The Washington Post. Coronavirus Vaccine Manufacturing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/17/coronavirus-vaccine-manufacturing/

[10] BioPharm International. LabVantage Awarded U.S. Army Contract for LIMS COVID-19 Vaccine Support. https://www.biopharminternational.com/view/labvantage-awarded-us-army-contract-for-lims-covid-19-vaccine-support

[11] Lab Manager. A Purpose-Built Biobanking LIMS Accelerator for Managing COVID-19 Testing. https://www.labmanager.com/a-purpose-built-biobanking-lims-accelerator-for-managing-covid-19-testing-22576

[12] University of Warwick. COVID-19 Testing and Laboratory Information Management Research. https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/156674/

[13] UK Parliament Public Accounts Committee. Unimaginable Cost of Test & Trace Failed to Deliver Central Promise. https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-s-committee/news/150988/unimaginable-cost-of-test-trace-failed-to-deliver-central-promise-of-averting-another-lockdown/

[14] KUT News. Austin's COVID-19 Case Count Is Slow. Blame the Fax Machine. https://www.kut.org/austin/2020-06-23/austins-covid-19-case-count-is-slow-making-contact-tracing-ineffective-blame-the-fax-machine

[15] The New York Times. The Technology That Helped America Respond to the Pandemic: Fax Machines. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/upshot/coronavirus-response-fax-machines.html

[16] Houston Public Media. Automated Process Caused Harris County COVID-19 Case Count to Jump by 14,000. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/harris-county/2020/09/23/382565/automated-process-caused-harris-county-covid-19-case-count-to-jump-by-14000/

[17] The Mainichi. Japanese COVID-19 Reporting Challenges. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200502/p2a/00m/0na/022000c

[18] Chosun Online. Tokyo Still Collects Infection Data Using Just Two Fax Machines, Taking Three Days to Reflect in Statistics (2020). https://www.chosunonline.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/07/20/2020072080001.html

[19] Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan). COVID-19 Data Reporting Guidance. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000934794.pdf

Next up: Where is all this heading? Data fabric and the future of lab software. →