DeWITT, N.Y. — Drakos Clinical Laboratories has opened its headquarters and a new laboratory facility at 6333 New York Route 298 (near Carrier Circle) in DeWitt, in the KPH Healthcare Services Inc. building. 

“This is a business office and clinical laboratory,” says Heather Drake Bianchi, CEO of Drakos Clinical Laboratories, referring to the firm’s new DeWitt headquarters. Drake spoke with CNYBJ on July 28. 

Drakos is a company that started as CineMedics, a group of paramedics helping on the set of film productions, such as those that Clay–based American High has worked on in the Syracuse area. 

CineMedics is now a division of Drakos Clinical Laboratories, which also leases space for a facility at 4000 Medical Center Drive Suite 108 in the town of Manlius, where patients can go to request a test. Its Manlius office opened in August 2021, while the company was initially operating as CineMedics.

Drakos can test for COVID-19, flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), influenza A, influenza B, norovirus, and monkeypox. 

In DeWitt, the lab opened July 12 but the company had been using the space for administrative functions since January, according to Drake. 

Outside New York state, Drakos also has offices in Atlanta, San Diego, and would like to open a location in the Boston area as well. The company owns three large mobile units and 10 smaller ones, which are operating at various projects across the country, says Drake. 

The firm started using the name Drakos in Atlanta around July 2021 and began using Drakos locally earlier this year in March, Drake tells CNYBJ.

The firm has grown from three to 42 employees, including about 20 who work at the local office. Drakos has a mix of both full and part-time employees.

“We’ve maintained running on internally generated funds the entirety of the time,” says Drake, noting that she would describe the business as “profitable.”. 

She has applied for certification as a woman-owned business enterprise, which is pending approval. 

Prior to working on medical and safety support with film productions, Drake was a paramedic with Rural/Metro Corp., which American Medical Response acquired in 2015.

Drake says her company’s mission is to offer the mobile service it’s been providing for film productions to the general public as well. 

“Parents with kids who need somebody to come to their house instead of going to the doctor. Folks that would like to enjoy the benefits of aging in place. Cancer patients that should not be going to a clinic. We can come to you,” says Drake. The goal is “to be able to bring a comprehensive mobile, integrated health solution to not just movies but to everybody.” 

Starting CineMedics

Drake had formed the group that would become CineMedics in 2017 to work with film-production crews. It started with three people and eventually grew to seven. CineMedics became an official business in August 2020.

“COVID accelerated the formalization of the company because we knew that when we were designing a set of protocols and advising in risk mitigation and starting a laboratory that was higher level of liability than we wanted to incur personally, so we formalized the business to create that separation,” says Drake. 

The group was working with Clay–based film-production company American High. It was collaborating with Hulu, which had a film called “Plan B” that was scheduled to begin filming in early March 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to redefine life in the U.S. 

A few months later, Drake’s mentor from Hulu asked her if she could find a way to get everyone back to work quickly but safely.

“We had been working with them as medical resources and risk-mitigation experts and he knew my background in molecular DNA analysis from [Syracuse University],” says Drake. 

She told her mentor from Hulu that those involved would need screening before they could come into the workplace.

“We came up with a set of protocols that got them back to work quickly but it was integral to having PCR testing available on an as-needed basis but on site. Nobody was doing that at the time,” she notes.

It would require bringing clinical instrumentation to the job site so those involved with film production could be screened and work safely. In most cases, the equipment used in laboratories usually never moves, she adds. 

“Because we realized that no laboratory was going to come on site to do this, I called the New York State Department of Health and [asked] what does it take to become a lab? How do you do it?” Drake recalls.

The department advised Drake that the requirements included needing a medical director and an address. Drake, who has been a paramedic for about two decades, completed the paperwork and collaborated with a local medical director. 

“We started an entry level laboratory where we can do entry level antigen and PCR testing and that’s what we did,” she says.  

CineMedics secured its first mobile unit, paying between $10,000 and $15,000 for a retired incident-command system which it converted into a laboratory. Drake says she self-financed the purchase.

Netflix Boston film 

As the year moved along, Drake eventually took a call from a group she had consulted with concerning risk management. The contact asked Drake if CineMedics could handle dealing with a crew of more than 300 involved with a movie called “Don’t Look Up,” which Netflix wanted to film in Boston starting in November 2020. 

Netflix requested the help of CineMedics in providing mass PCR testing. Drake indicated her company would need to be licensed for work in Massachusetts. Despite her concern that licensing offices would be closed due to the pandemic, Netflix got CineMedics licensed to help with testing on the movie production that included actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, and Ariana Grande.

About a dozen CineMedics employees worked at the site of the Boston film project from November 2020 until the beginning of March 2021. 

Establishing Drakos

Drake knew the business model would work fine for film productions as the pandemic continued, but as the pandemic dissipates, what plan did the company have moving forward?  

“What we saw is that mobile-laboratory needs were not going to go away. And that we were learning something integral about laboratory work and how to make it mobile … We don’t have to stick to just COVID. We can do a lot of other things,” says Drake. 

The business started adding other testing options to its menu, such as flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and others. CineMedics knew that film-production screenings weren’t going to be its long-term business model.

“It was always a mobile clinical laboratory,” she notes. “So, that’s why the name evolved.”

The company’s name, Drakos, is a nod to the little lab dragon figurines that the business has throughout its space. They were part of an “internal company culture” during the firm’s work in Boston that the lab dragons “were always watching” to make sure all employees involved were following all the rules (such as mask wearing) as they executed their work.

Locally, Drakos Clinical Laboratories chose its new space in DeWitt because it needed more room to operate. “We also needed a place to build out our clinical laboratory,” Drake adds.

Prior to the new headquarters, company employees handling the administrative operations were working from Drake’s house and her kitchen table, which can accommodate 12 people, but ran out of chairs, she notes.