Quest Industries history

In 1972 Brown spent more than $1 million on two AutoChemist units, which raised the number of blood tests MetPath could perform automatically to 25 and saved significantly on costly chemical reagents needed for analysis.

Corning Glass Works bought ten percent of its stock in 1973.

By 1975 Corning also had begun marketing white blood cell analyzers to automate one of the last blood tests still being performed manually in clinical laboratories.

In 1977 Corning's health and sciences activities were consolidated into a single operating division with sales amounting to $221 million and net income at 12 percent of the parent company's total.

The company had net income of $3.8 million in fiscal 1978 (the year ended September 30, 1978) on revenues of $53.4 million.

MetPath was, by 1979, challenging Damon Corp. for first place in the clinical laboratory testing field, which had grown into a $12-billion-a-year business.

In 1981 these figures were $374 million and 32 percent, respectively.

MetPath was tops in the clinical laboratory testing field by 1982.

By 1988 MetPath was again solidly in the black, although SmithKline Beckman Laboratories was doing twice as much annual business in the clinical testing field as MetPath's $350 million.

Laboratory Services had net sales of $580.8 million in 1989 and income before tax of $99.2 million.

At the end of 1990 the Laboratory Services segment was placed into a subsidiary named Corning Lab Services Inc.

MetPath, now able to handle more than 1,400 different clinical tests, remained the major unit. It strengthened its regional network in 1991 by the addition of smaller labs, including Clinical Pathology Facility, Inc. in Pittsburgh and Continental Bio-Clinical Laboratories in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In 1992, however, the company earned $18 million on sales of $317 million.

Despite net revenues of $1.63 billion in 1995, Corning Clinical Laboratories lost $52.1 million, after the parent company took a charge of $62 million to increase accounts receivable because of the billings problems.

The company was spun off from the Corning, Inc. as an independent company on December 31, 1996.

In 1997 Quest had a net loss of $22.3 million on revenues of $1.53 billion.

1999: Acquires SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories; GlaxoSmithKline still holds a large portion of Quest Diagnostics stock.

2000: Launch of Six Sigma program leading the charge to raise the quality of healthcare delivery in the United States.

2002: Completes acquisition of Virginia-based American Medical Laboratories, Inc. (AML) and an affiliated company of AML, LabPortal, Inc., for approximately $500 million in cash.

2003: Completes acquisition of California-based Unilab Corporation (NASDAQ: ULAB) in a transaction valued at approximately $800 million .

2005: forms a strategic alliance with Ciphergen Biosystems to commercialize novel proteomic tests.

2006: Completes acquisition of Virginia-based Focus Diagnostics, Inc., an infectious and immunologic disease laboratory, for approximately $185 million in cash.

2011: Completes acquisition of Celera Corporation, a company that became famous by its sequencing of the Human Genome.