QIAGEN (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced plans to move its QIAstat-Dx operations within the Barcelona area to a new site in Esplugues de Llobregat as part of a multi-year investment to strengthen this business.
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Set to open in early 2026, the new site will cover the entire value chain for the QIAstat-Dx system, which is used for syndromic testing to identify the cause of an illness – especially in the areas of respiratory, gastrointestinal and meningitis / encephalitis conditions.
QIAstat-Dx is also being developed for use in precision medicine, in particular to support the expansion of recent partnerships announced with Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca. In precision medicine applications, QIAstat‑Dx for instance enables specialty care providers to perform genotyping whilst patients undergo routine clinical examination, thus enabling fast decision-making for potential suitability for certain genomically targeted medicines.
The new site builds on the long-standing presence of QIAGEN in the Barcelona area. Teams at the site will include Research & Development, Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs. In addition, it will serve as a center of excellence for R&D in microfluidics, as well as system and assay development.
“QIAstat-Dx demonstrated its value during the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting healthcare providers with rapid syndromic testing and crucial information when time mattered most,” said Thierry Bernard, CEO of QIAGEN. “Now we are building on this success by expanding the QIAstat-Dx pipeline to address a broader spectrum of healthcare needs. This means both expanding the range of pathogens for infectious disease testing as well as developing solutions for other disease areas and precision medicine applications.”
Barcelona provides an ideal location for this expansion, combining access to scientific talent with a robust ecosystem that includes universities, research institutions, start-ups, and well established pharma and life science companies.
QIAGEN can also build on the local expertise in the QIAstat-Dx technology, which was originally developed by a start-up from Barcelona and acquired by QIAGEN in 2018.
The Esplugues de Llobregrat site will enable QIAGEN to advance diagnostic capabilities in infectious diseases and beyond, helping to meet the growing demand for rapid diagnostics in diverse healthcare settings, from hospitals and clinics to decentralized testing points. The site will span 8,000 square meters and include offices, manufacturing lines, clean rooms, laboratories and logistics areas. The base building of the new facility has received LEED Platinum Certification, the highest standard in energy-efficient and environmentally responsible building design. The fit-out of the new facility will also meet this high standard and will be equipped with digitalized production lines.
The QIAstat-Dx system, designed for laboratory use, employs cost-efficient, single-use cartridges with built-in sample processing and on-board reagents. Utilizing multiplex real-time PCR, it detects and differentiates between multiple genetic targets, with results in about an hour. QIAstat-Dx also provides easy‑to‑view cycle threshold (Ct) values and amplification curves, offering additional insights not available with end-point PCR or other techniques.
Four QIAstat-Dx panels have been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including panels for pathogens causing respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, meningitis and encephalitis. In the European Union and other countries that accept the marking, two panels for detecting respiratory and gastrointestinal infections have received CE-marking under the new In-Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Regulation (IVDR).
The system already has a strong footprint in infectious disease testing and will be further strengthened by accelerating innovations and expanding the testing menu to a broader range of pathogens, such as blood culture identification and complicated urinary tract infections
QIAGEN has already signed three partnerships with pharma companies including Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca to expand QIAstat‑Dx beyond infectious diseases. The new facilities will support this expansion into other disease areas such as neurodegenerative, metabolic, inflammatory and other genetically driven chronic diseases.
