'To serve humanity': Diagnostic lab continues its work at an expanded New London site
Oct. 27—NEW LONDON — Visitors to the newly operational Genesys Diagnostics Inc. laboratory building on Bank Street are greeted by a wall-sized painting of Suneeta Ahuja, the company's first president who died of cancer in 2021.
Her husband, Dinesh Ahuja, the firm's inaugural vice president, said the couple — she was a former Pfizer scientist, and he worked for a bio-tech company — founded the company in 2009 with a lofty purpose.
"To serve humanity," he said Friday from inside a freshly refurbished room in a 25,000-square-foot space that crews began rebuilding in March 2022.
The company moved its headquarters out of a former Oakdale veterinary clinic and into a building shared with the Coastal Digestive Care Center. That shift, in addition to the typical headaches associated with any move, was made more challenging by the state of their new 234 Bank St. home and the company's specialized equipment.
Genesys Diagnostics provides its hospital and other clients with a wide range of genetic testing services, including oncology chromosome studies, cardiology screenings and heredity cancer tests. That work requires the use of highly sensitive centrifuges, sequencers, deep-freeze units and microscopes, said Dinesh and Suneeta Ahuja's son, Divakar Ahuja, the company's new president and CEO.
"We had to get seven different vendors here to make sure everything was calibrated," Divakar Ahuja said, noting the Bank Street location is more than twice as large as the Oakdale site. "In addition, our warehouse had a domed roof that was flattening and needed to be re-enforced with steel bars."
But the work was worth it, said Matt Russell, the company's senior molecular technologist and lab supervisor. Russell, a Groton resident who signed on with Genesys Diagnostics four years ago, said the move to New London came with advantages.
"We have room to grow," he said standing inside a gleaming white lab that used to be a dilapidated bar. "And serve more patients."
Divakar Ahuja said he's pursuing working on growing the company's clientele. He said it's tough to break into the healthcare market as most of the facilities nearby, like Yale New Haven Health and Hartford HealthCare, have established contracts with bigger labs.
"Right now, most of our samples come from out-of-state clients, like Illinois and New Jersey," Divakar Ahuja said. "But we provide a level of quality and care above others through our technology, our levels of accuracy and the staff here."
He said samples, including tissue, swabs and blood, arrive via courier and are prepped for three days before being examined and results formatted into reports doctors can use to treat patients with genetic anomalies.
Genesys Diagnostics employs roughly 40 workers, a mix of lab technologists and directors supported by ancillary staff in billing, outreach and sales departments.
On Friday, state Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London, stopped by to tour the lab ahead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony set for Nov. 4. Nolan marveled at the improvements to the space.
"This was just an empty shell before," he said inside the lobby, where Suneeta Ahuja's portrait hung. "It's so beautiful."
