COVINGTON, Ky. — There’s a hidden spot in Covington called the Innovation Alley. There, you’ll find Gravity Diagnostics, a laboratory providing diagnostic testing, pharmacogenetics, toxicology as well as COVID-19 testing.
“We’ve been around over four years,” said CEO Anthony Remington. “Back in February of this year we had our best month ever, so things are moving along quite nicely.”
So much so that the lab is licensed in all 50 states, spent over $2 million in instrumentation, hired more than 80 people to keep up with the demand and brought interns in from schools right here in the Tri-State.
“We’re still getting about 4,000 samples a day,” he said. “We anticipate that number going up.”
Remington said another reason they were prepared when the pandemic struck had to do with a neighbor of theirs: Northern Kentucky Tri-ED, a private nonprofit company that helps with economic development in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties.
“A part of the first floor of our building was all Tri-ED,” Remington said. “They moved out for us and let us take over that side of the building, which allowed us to scale. If they didn’t do that we wouldn’t have been able to put as much effort and time.”
Northern Kentucky Tri-ED has been helping existing companies grow and bring in new companies to the community. But during the pandemic, they also have been helping employees with unemployment.
“On a worst-case scenario, companies were shutting down and laying people off and we were immediately connecting their employees to resources so that they could understand how they can get services,” said Lee Crume, President and CEO of Northern Kentucky Tri-ED.
Crume says they have been working with companies that have been severely impacted — including hotels and restaurants — but also have been working with businesses that have been booming due to the pandemic, like Gravity Diagnostics.
“From a Tri-ED perspective, this pandemic is going to have an impact on us from a financial perspective just like it has to so many other companies,” Crume said. “We feel very fortunate though that we’ve had the opportunity to play a role in helping companies get through this and help provide some leadership to get our community on to the upswing of the economic trend on the other side of it.”
