The Department of Clinical Biochemistry offers diagnostic support to the physicians of our hospital to provide a good clinical service. The laboratory has been accredited by the NABL under ISO/IEC 15189. The development over the years has made it possible to handle over 7000 samples per day and well over 28,000 tests per day.

All the automated instruments are linked to the Hospital LAN allowing on-line transfer of results. Sample collection in vacutainers, transporting through the pneumatic system and bar-coding the samples have reduced manual errors and has facilitated in decreasing the turnaround time of results tremendously. At present we do nearly 200 different tests. Various commercial assayed QC and internal QC prepared in house have been included in the assays ensuring good quality results. Some of the milestones of the department are:

• Early 70's Introduction of Continuous Flow Analyser for the first time in India (single/double channel)
• 1975 - Introduction of in-house radioimmunoassay (RIA) for thyroxine.
• 1978 - Introduction of ACBI-CMC EQAS for the Indian laboratories (first time in India)
• Mid 80's to mid-90's newer versions of Discrete Selective Analyser were added and RIAs for various other hormones
• 1984 - Trace metal measurements by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer.
• 1986 - Introduction of blood gas analysers
• 1990 - Introduction of Ion-Selective Electrode system for electrolyte measurement
• 1993 - Introduction of automated Enzyme Immuno Assay (EIA)
• 1994 - Introduction of drug assay using EMIT technique.
• 1997 - Hormone assays by Chemiluminescence system.
• 2002 - Hand book of Biochemistry lab service was released.
• 2002 - The department was the first in CMC to be accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and calibration Laboratories.(NABL) complying to ISO 15189 – Standards.
• 2004 - Launching of the CMC EQAS website for the online transfer of results and reports.
• 2006 - Pneumatic system for the transport of samples from the wards and OPD to the various labs.
• 2008 - Introduction of the lyophilysed QC with 23 parameters.
• 2011 - Introduction of the Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICPMS) to measure trace elements and heavy metal.
• 2013 - Dedication of the new lyophilizer Lab.
• 2014 - The Proficiency testing programme, CMC-EQASwas accredited by NABL complying to ISO 17043-2010 standards as the first medical testing lab in India.
• 2014 - Introduction of automated pre analytical solution-cobas P-512.
• 2018 - LCMS for steroids.
• 2019 - HPLC for Vitamins.
• 2019 - Introduction of the CCM –Cobasconnecting module ( pre-analytics to the Analytics).
• 2020 - Covid Biochemsitry lab at CMC Vellore Ranipet campus.
• 2022 - Introduction of FTIR for kidney stone analysis.
• 2022 - Setting up of new lab at CMC, Vellore, Ranipet campus.
• 2023 - CMC EQAS participants from all over India and neighbouring countries, Nepal, Bangladesh and Srilanka.

The Department is involved in teaching the following courses: M.D. Biochemistry, M.D. Pathology, Diploma in Clinical Pathology and B.Sc. in Medical Laboratory Technology. The department also involves in active research.

Short term visitor observer course is available for lab personnel from Mission Hospitals and Government Hospitals.