In March 2020, the whole world paused. Normal life was suspended in time as we reckoned with the reality of a global pandemic. But cancer doesn’t pause for a pandemic.

This was a difficult juncture for precision healthcare company, Syantra Inc., who’d been hard at work developing a blood test for the early detection of breast cancer. Their clinical studies underway in Calgary, Oklahoma City and Manchester were all suspended within the last two weeks of March 2020. Their main focus was retrieving samples that had already been collected, ensuring data to keep moving their test forward.

“Without samples, we wouldn’t have any ability to generate data, even though we were able to observe physical distancing and other COVID guidelines to continue work in our Calgary lab,” says Bob Shepherd, Co-Founder, President & CEO of Syantra. “Our other concern was how long the shutdowns would last and how that would affect our sample count, project timelines and study outcomes.”

Fortunately, Syantra had a significant number of samples already in their Calgary-based biobank prior to the lockdowns. And throughout March and April, they successfully shipped in 95% of the samples that had been collected internationally. But this was only the first roadblock that COVID placed in their path.

“Being able to reopen provided the materials we needed at a critical point in our growth.”

The pandemic demanded an all-hands-on-deck approach from the medical community, including medical testing laboratories. Syantra had been working with Alberta Precision Labs (APL) for sample collection. As COVID cases surged, access to APL services wasn’t an option. Fortunately, Calgary’s burgeoning biotech community presented another opportunity with TapLabs; an innovative mobile lab collection service.

“To overcome the sample collection issue, we partnered with TapLabs to conduct collections for us... That ultimately allowed us to restart recruitment in Calgary,” says Shepherd.