How NYS Diagnostic and Supply Is Making Diagnostics More Accessible in Montgomery County

When Minata Saddy first arrived in the U.S. from the Ivory Coast to attend Bowie State University, she wasn’t thinking about entrepreneurship. She was focused on science. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she became certified as a medical technologist and spent the next decade working in clinical microbiology at some of the region’s most respected institutions—MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Maryland Oncology Hematology, and the NIH Clinical Center.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, everything changed.

With young children at home and a demanding hospital schedule that started at 6 a.m., Minata made the difficult decision to pivot out of the lab. She became a certified business analyst and began contracting for federal agencies. That shift gave her both the technical insight and the entrepreneurial spark to explore a new possibility: starting a lab of her own.

In September 2023, she launched NYS Diagnostic and Supply, a medical diagnostics company based in Rockville. The business began seeing clients in early 2024—and it’s already carving out a niche.

Filling a Gap in Fast, Accessible Testing

Unlike large diagnostic labs that require patients to travel and wait for results, NYS Diagnostic brings care closer to the client. The lab offers three categories of service:

• Mobile and in-office lab testing for individuals – including those who are uninsured, bed-bound, or simply seeking faster turnaround than the big players provide.
• Occupational health and pre-employment testing – drug screens, TB tests, and vaccine titers for construction companies, transportation providers, home health agencies, and other employers.
• Specialized collection services – supporting pharmaceutical studies and clinical research trials with certified mobile sample collection.

The lab is CLIA-waived, meaning it’s approved to perform certain low-complexity tests in-house—like COVID testing and other screenings that provide results in under an hour. 

Clients can visit the Rockville location or arrange for mobile service, saving time and reducing barriers to care.

Building Up NYS Diagnostic and Supply 

This isn’t Minata’s first time as a business owner—she ran a small grocery store in Germantown for four years. But she says the experience of building NYS Diagnostic has been markedly different, thanks in part to the support she’s received through Montgomery County’s small business ecosystem.

As a recent graduate of the Montgomery Black Chamber’s AMBER Program (Cohort 5), Minata credits the initiative with helping her fill crucial knowledge gaps in finance, marketing, and government contracting. “I already had a business plan, but they helped me build a brand,” she explains. “Working with a marketing SME, I learned how to create a structure for outreach and visibility.”

That foundation has helped her position NYS Diagnostic for growth—especially as demand rises for on-site drug testing in federally regulated industries like construction and transportation.

Minata currently manages the business solo while juggling business development, client services, and parenting three young daughters, all enrolled in the Montgomery County French immersion program. “They’re very curious about the business,” she laughs. “They’ve already decided they want to work for me in high school instead of getting jobs at, say, Chick-fil-A.”

With that kind of motivation, Minata’s next chapter is already taking shape. She aims to hire one or two new team members by the end of the year and further expand the business’s footprint.

She’s also clear-eyed about the challenges of wearing all the hats. “At some point, you need to have people to help you handle this and that,” she says. “You can't do it all alone forever.”

With a bricks-and-mortar lab now open in Rockville and a growing list of institutional clients, NYS Diagnostic and Supply is already proving what’s possible when deep clinical expertise meets community-driven entrepreneurship.