Venture to Aid Medical Testing in China

Two U.S. companies have announced a joint venture to form medical testing facilities in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Called LAB, the new venture will be jointly owned by Bridgetech Holdings International, Inc. (Solana Beach, CA, USA) and Amcare Labs International, Inc., an affiliate of Johns Hopkins Medicine International (Baltimore, MD, USA). The LAB will provide a full spectrum of laboratory services--including anatomic pathology, cytology, molecular diagnostics, high-end immunology, cytogenetics, and flow cytometry--to
doctors and patients in China. In addition, the LAB will provide second-opinion services from Johns Hopkins Medical Laboratories.

"We believe that our relationships and resources in China, coupled with Amcare's reputation within the international medical community, will allow us to achieve our goal,” said Herbert Wong, chairman of Bridgetech Holdings. "In addition, the success of this joint venture will also position us very well to achieve other key components of our business strategy, including leveraging our resources to successfully commercialize additional promising healthcare services and products in Asia.” Bridgetech noted it will be offering products and services that have the highest probability for incremental success in China.

"We are very pleased to enter this strategic relationship with Bridgetech,” noted Dr. Mohan Chellappa, president of Amcare. "We believe the LAB is another key milestone, and helps us towards becoming the leading provider of reference laboratory services in markets outside the U.S.”