Unlike many other healthcare providers, medical labs can’t ply their trade purely via telehealth. Human contact is necessary at some point. After all, testing must be performed on actual, physical samples. Collection and delivery of samples becomes trickier when tests are ordered via telehealth. Patients who can’t or won’t leave home for a medical consultation also want to be able to provide the samples necessary to perform the tests their telehealth provider orders for them without going to a clinic or collection center. This situation has created the need for a new kind of service: in-home phlebotomy.

Getlabs Takes the In-Home Phlebotomy Market by Storm

Among the up-and-comers in this space is Getlabs, a Miami, Florida-based startup that has assembled a nationwide network of roving phlebotomists that will come to a patient’s home or office to collect samples for a “convenience fee” starting at $35. Although it has only existed since 2018, Getlabs has secured major in-home phlebotomy services contracts from some of the nation’s biggest lab companies, including Labcorp, Quest Diagnostics, and Sonora Quest.

The company now operates in 25 states and the District of Columbia and plans to expand both its geographic and services offering footprints. Last February, it bolstered its expansion designs by raising $20 million in Series A funding. Its investors include Labcorp, Byers Capital, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki and her sister Susan, who happens to serve as CEO of YouTube.

The Getlabs/JumpstartMD Alliance

Getlabs has made another dynamic move by teaming with weight management firm JumpstartMD. The collaboration with JumpstartMD, which was announced on Sept. 27, enables Getlabs to apply its business model to a different kind of venture. JumpstartMD isn’t a lab network but a weight management program that deploys Stanford-trained physicians and other medical professionals to provide personalized and clinically-based weight loss solutions, as well as nutritional, hormone replacement, and vitamin therapy services. Teaming up with Getlabs enables JumpstartMD to order on-demand blood draws as part of their at-home health monitoring program.

Under the partnership, Getlabs mobile labs will collect samples from JumpstartMD members and send them to local labs for testing. Those labs will then report the results to the member’s ordering healthcare provider. JumpstartMD providers will then use those results to create or track the test subject’s individualized health program. JumpstartMD providers can also prescribe FDA-approved medications to supplement and support the program.

"Medical evaluations and ongoing monitoring are critical for maintaining care plans and driving positive patient outcomes," noted Getlabs founder and chief executive officer Kyle Michelson in a press release. "By empowering JumpstartMD members with convenient at-home blood draw services, we can help increase program adherence."

The In-Home Phlebotomy Market

Lockdowns and the vast expansion of telehealth have driven explosive growth in the global mobile phlebotomy services market, which financial consultant Emergen Research valued at $497.3 million in 2020. Emergen also predicts a revenue compound annual growth rate of 4.4 percent through 2028, driven by growing demand for routine blood testing. The cancer segment is expected to grow the fastest and account for the highest market share due to high worldwide cancer rates and rising demand for mobile phlebotomy services for blood-based tests to detect non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), solid tumor, and hematologic cancers via liquid biopsy. In addition to Getlabs, major players in the in-home phlebotomy market include NeoGenomics Laboratories, Viracor-IBT Laboratories, Angel's on Wheels Mobile Phlebotomy LLC, Sonora Quest Laboratories, TravaLab LLC, Ultimate Wellness Providers Co., Mobile Phlebotomy Services, Inc., Pinnacle Mobile Phlebotomy, LLC, VeniExpress, Inc., and Progressive Phlebotomy Services, LLC.

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Here’s a summary of key strategic diagnostic deals announced in October 2022:

Strategic Alliances, Partnerships, & Collaborations

Distribution, Sales, & Marketing Agreements

Licenses

Government Contracts