Modern medical technologies have made in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests an integral part of the healthcare infrastructure. With just a small blood or urine sample from a patient, IVD service providers can run a wide array of tests for many chronic diseases, and provide comprehensive reports quickly and effortlessly.

Providers of such tests have been in the headlines following news that the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) is inviting the public to give feedback on the two-year commitments proposed by Pathology Asia Holdings (PAH) to address competition concerns in the planned merger of two private clinical laboratories ("Feedback sought on proposed commitments in labs merger", The Straits Times, June 22).