It was April of 2020. The state was desperate for help from any laboratory that could process COVID tests quickly. Much of the laboratory space at Sema4, a Stamford-based healthcare technology startup, was sitting idle, its genomic data analysis business largely suspended by the pandemic.
So Sema4 pivoted. In less than three weeks, as the virus continued to rampage across the state, Sema4 obtained federal certification to do coronavirus antigen testing, responded to the state’s Request for Proposals for COVID testing and signed its first of two state contracts that eventually paid more than $25 million.