QuidelOrtho Brand Guidelines: Quidel, Ortho, VITROS & a 2022 San Diego Merger

A San Diego start-up and a Johnson and Johnson division.

QuidelOrtho is an American in vitro diagnostics company headquartered in San Diego, California. It was formed in 2022 by combining two older businesses: Quidel, a San Diego diagnostics maker, and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, which grew out of Johnson & Johnson.

Quidel was started by David Katz. The company’s timeline dates Quidel’s founding to 1979 in San Diego; the Los Angeles Times, reporting in March 1988 that Katz had stepped down as chairman to concentrate on research at the Medical Biology Institute, described Quidel as a La Jolla-based biotechnology firm founded in 1981. At that time, the paper said, Quidel made monoclonal antibody-based diagnostic kits for ovulation, pregnancy and allergies. English Wikipedia says the present Quidel Corporation was formed in 1991 by a merger of Quidel with Monoclonal Antibodies, and the company says its shares began trading on Nasdaq under the symbol QDEL that year.

Ortho is older. The company’s timeline says Ortho Products, Inc. was formed in 1939 in Linden, New Jersey, as a division of Johnson & Johnson. English Wikipedia says the haematologist Philip Levine joined it in 1944 to continue his research on the Rh blood-group system, and the company says Ortho developed the first blood-bank anti-D test for the clinical market in 1947. Johnson & Johnson bought Eastman Kodak’s clinical diagnostics division in 1994 and merged it with Ortho Diagnostic Systems in 1997 to form Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, English Wikipedia says; the Kodak side brought the thin-film “dry slide” chemistry that the company dates to 1978. In 2014 The Carlyle Group bought the business from Johnson & Johnson, and in 2021 Ortho listed its own shares on Nasdaq under the symbol OCDX, the company says.

Rapid tests and laboratory analysers.

The two halves brought different products. Quidel’s were mostly rapid and point-of-care tests. Its QuickVue lateral-flow range includes the QuickVue Influenza A+B test, which the company says received FDA clearance in 1999 and calls the world’s first rapid flu test; its Sofia fluorescent immunoassay analyser received FDA clearance in 2011, the company says. English Wikipedia also lists direct fluorescent antibody products, bone and complement markers and molecular assays among Quidel’s categories. Acquisitions included Metra Biosystems in 1999, Litmus Concepts in 2000, Diagnostic Hybrids in 2010 and BioHelix in 2013, English Wikipedia says, and the company says Quidel acquired the Triage cardiac and toxicology product line in 2017.

Ortho’s products serve hospital laboratories and blood banks. The VITROS systems run chemistry and immunoassay tests for laboratories, and the company says it received FDA approval for its automated VITROS ECiQ immunodiagnostic system in 2000. In immunohematology — the matching of donated blood to the people who receive it — Ortho launched the ORTHO Workstation, a semi-automated system built on column agglutination, in 2013, according to the company’s timeline. Its automated ORTHO VISION analyser received FDA clearance in 2016, the company says; English Wikipedia gives 2015.

COVID-19 testing involved both companies. On 8 May 2020 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued Quidel the first emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 rapid antigen test, for its Sofia 2 SARS Antigen FIA, English Wikipedia says, and the company says Quidel received an emergency authorization for an at-home QuickVue COVID-19 test in 2021. Ortho launched two VITROS antibody tests for the virus in 2020, the company’s timeline says.

How diagnostics companies present themselves.

In vitro diagnostics is a business most people meet only at second hand, through a blood sample sent away or a result read back by a doctor. The companies behind those results make analysers, the reagents that run on them and the software that ties them together, and they sell mainly to hospital laboratories, independent labs and clinics rather than to the public.

That shapes how they look. The typical product photograph shows a white or pale grey bench analyser in a clean laboratory, sometimes linked to others in a line of automation, with sample tubes standing in racks and a touchscreen at the front. Smaller formats appear too: single-use cartridges for point-of-care machines, test strips and cassettes for rapid tests, pipettes and reagent packs. Blue and white palettes are common across the sector, along with plain sans serif type and diagrams of the laboratory workflow, and some makers have had their instruments judged on design: Sysmex’s clinical laboratory system was among the Good Design Gold Award winners in Japan in 2011.

The trade meets at a few large events. MEDICA in Düsseldorf gathers medical technology makers, and the annual meeting of ADLM, the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine, formerly the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, brings laboratory companies together in the United States. Some of these groups grew by acquisition, so a single corporate name often sits above product names that began with other companies.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand: who founded it, who owns it, where its products are made and what it says about its own identity, and it marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word. No diagnostic or clinical claims are made for any product.

One name from two, in San Diego.

Quidel announced in December 2021 that it would acquire Ortho, and the combination was completed on 27 May 2022, English Wikipedia says. HPN Online reported on 31 May 2022 that QuidelOrtho had announced the completion of the transaction, creating a company headquartered in San Diego and trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under Quidel’s old symbol, QDEL; its board was made up of eight former Quidel directors and four former Ortho directors. Ortho’s corporate offices in Raritan, New Jersey, and its research and development centre in Rochester, New York, came with it, according to English Wikipedia.

The name simply joins the two companies, written as one word with a capital O. On its website the company uses the line “Powering a healthier future for all,” and sets product names such as VITROS, SOFIA, QUICKVUE and TRIAGE in capitals with trademark symbols. The older domains quidel.com and orthoclinicaldiagnostics.com now redirect to quidelortho.com, and the website notes that the new QuidelOrtho branding may not be available in every market, subject to country-specific regulatory approval.

The company says it offers some 550 assays in more than 140 countries and territories. In 2025 it launched a RESULTS MANAGER informatics system, and in 2026 it completed the acquisition of Lex Diagnostics, maker of a real-time PCR platform for point-of-care molecular testing that the company describes as ultra-rapid. The company calls that purchase a critical strategic milestone for its growth in point-of-care molecular testing.

For a design guide, QuidelOrtho shows how a merged company can keep both founding names in its own. Compare Abbott, another American diagnostics maker, and Cepheid, which also works in molecular testing. For this guide we use a deep teal and an ink navy with a soft mint, set in a clean sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep QuidelOrtho’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.