Newsom Issues Executive Order on PerkinElmer Contract

Late last week, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-77-20to expedite efforts by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Department of General Services (DGS) to establish and operate up to three sites for use as laboratories to increase the state’s COVID-19 testing capacity. Governor Newsom’s order comes on the heels of an announced $1.4 billion contractwith diagnostics company PerkinElmer to expand laboratory processing of tens of thousands of additional COVID-19 tests by November 1 with a contractual turnaround time of 24-48 hours.