Applera Corp.'s new $75 million high-throughput genotyping initiative to be equally funded by its three businesses, Celera Genomics Group, Applied Biosystems Group, and Celera Diagnostics (a joint venture of Celera Genomics and Applied Bio) has provided a context for the company to begin to reveal its diagnostics strategy. New information about the structure of the joint venture also sheds more light on the acceleration of Celera Genomics' business strategy as it moves toward a collaborator-oriented drug discovery company model.

Roche Diagnostics is the best performing asset at Roche. As the troubled Swiss pharma company suffers through its worst pipeline drought in a decade, Roche Diagnostics is delivering a stellar performance. It is strong across all business segments, from laboratory systems to diabetes to molecular testing. Its challenge: to pull far enough ahead in its traditional businesses to maintain a comfortable lead. Its bigger hurdle, however, is to position itself as a leader in adoption of new genomic and proteomic diagnostic technologies, which is where the industry's future growth lies.

The diagnostics company has secured $10m from the foundation to develop a biomarker test for Parkinson’s disease.