Montgomery County Terminates COVID-19 Contract With Rockville Lab

ROCKVILLE, MD — Montgomery County is cutting ties with its largest supplier of COVID-19 tests after the state raised concerns about the company's testing and processing procedures.

The county's decision to terminate its contract with AdvaGenix — a Rockville-based lab that provided and processed thousands of free tests for the county's COVID-19 clinics — comes days after state officials visited the company and found deficient practices.

Health officials did not go into specifics but said investigators found "improper laboratory and COVID-19 testing procedures that endanger patient health, safety, and welfare."

Following the release of the findings, Montgomery County officials temporarily shut down most of its COVID-19 testing sites.

"The county continues to provide testing to symptomatic individuals using existing partnerships with other labs," officials said in a statement on Tuesday. "Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 265,000 COVID-19 tests have been administered to county residents. Tests provided by AdvaGenix were approximately 8 percent of these tests."

In a statement to Patch on Tuesday, AdvaGenix owner Dr. William Kearns expressed his disappointment with the county for terminating the contract.

"It's unfortunate that the county has taken this action when we expect a swift resolution to the regulatory issues in question," Kearns said.

He added that AdvaGenix's tests are "safe and accurate," and that the company "wants to resolve this dispute as quickly as possible and get back to the important work of helping our community."

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