Today’s economic realities are giving new impetus to the trend towards hospital laboratory consolidation, with many laboratory leaders implementing Lean organisational changes in the drive for greater efficiency in the face of escalating costs and workflow demands.
To remain competitive, companies must develop innovative solutions. Recent global research into how Beckman Coulter is perceived listed four key attributes that people said were the company’s strengths: integrity, collaboration, a focus on exclusively serving laboratories, and its ability to deliver practical innovation. The recent acquisition of Olympus Diagnostics is yet another example of that continuous innovation, providing the ‘perfect marriage’ for the UK’s clinical diagnostics market.
The integration of the Olympus product range into Beckman Coulter complements its current capabilities, leading to an unparalleled portfolio of core laboratory solutions. There are no gaps in the company’s offerings and it is able to serve the needs of laboratories of all sizes.
The new corporate strapline, ‘We’re better together’, aptly describes the integration process currently underway, and also reflects the company’s long-term partnership approach to the healthcare delivery industry and its laboratory customers.
What are the overall advantages and benefits to existing customers and those who are now part of the Beckman Coulter family?
Beckman Coulter made this acquisition because we believe the combined businesses are better together. There is very little product overlap to hinder integration. We are creating a world leader in clinical diagnostics with a special strength in the core laboratory – a solution which offers automation, laboratory consolidation and the convergence of clinical chemistry and immunoassays; alongside innovative haematology systems like the DxH 800 and the highest quality of service.
The combined market presence and expanded range of products offers particular advantages to European hospitals seeking the most efficient and broad- based solutions. This broad portfolio is even more important in the UK, as a greater number of managed service contracts come within our reach. The expanded Beckman Coulter positions the company to cover the network of hubs and regional laboratories which require high-volume chemistry analysers.
We can see the impact already, with the expanded Beckman Coulter now challenging Roche as the world leader in clinical chemistry solutions, and ahead of Siemens.
Now, AU chemistry systems complement the existing Beckman Coulter product line, providing effective solutions for customers in both the ultrahigh- throughput and the low-volume segments. In addition, a wider range of customers will now have access to Beckman Coulter’s high-throughput immunoassay instrument, the UniCel DxI 800, which is capable of running up to 400 tests per hour.
Our automation product lines are also complementary. We’re a leader in connected total laboratory automation. Now, by adding additional expertise in pre-analytical automation, we are able to offer customers who need automation more choices and better solutions.
We can see already that the fit works in laboratories in locations as wide spread as The Netherlands, Spain and Israel. Here, AU systems, DxI 800 immunoassay analysers and overall Beckman Coulter total laboratory automation solutions have already been shown to work effectively. This is because the two companies had been working together successfully for some time before the acquisition to satisfy the needs particularly of laboratories requiring high-volume throughput.
How will the acquisition impact on former Olympus customers?
From a business perspective we are keeping our customers informed of any changes to their process as they occur. At the same time, and throughout the transition, we are also maintaining the highest possible level of service to all our customers. In the longer term, this acquisition will provide our customers with access to an even broader portfolio of products.
Already taking place is the active integration of the two enterprise management systems. Once that process is complete, we will provide each customer with updated information about ongoing customer service.
In future, the newly combined team will have an even more robust product development capability and, over time, will offer new products or services that could serve as an upgrade to some existing products. We are already supplying Beckman Coulter-branded AU systems for any new orders, and existing products will be given their new corporate identity as quickly as possible.
Are any Beckman Coulter products affected?
The acquisition does mean we have decided not to continue the planned development of a low-volume analyser, the UniCel DxC 500. Olympus had recently launched the AU480, a high-quality, low-throughput analyser replacing the very popular AU400, which is a good fit for this market. This decision adheres to the principle of addressing the few clear overlap issues, and focuses our development activity on next-generation integrated systems.
What are the changes to reagents, supplies or consumables?
Our solutions are based on simplifying, automating and innovating our customer processes – to be effective, the instrument platforms must work in concert with reagents and software. We expect the newly combined team to have an even more robust product development capability and, over time, will offer new products or services that could serve as upgrades to some existing products.
Where do I find product information?
One of the biggest challenges is what happens behind the scenes outside the laboratory. Well before the anniversary of the acquisition being finalised, the migration of data will be completed so customers will have one focal point for all their chemistry needs. In the meantime, they will continue to find product information in the same places as before. They can also call their existing sales representative who will be happy to assist with any product enquiries.
We’ll provide advance notice of any changes in customer processes once we’re close to completing the integration into Beckman’s systems. For Beckman Coulter customers, there should be no changes to their processes.
From a practical point of view, how far has the integration process progressed?
In the UK alone, we have key ‘integration’ milestones we can talk about; for example:
* we were able to provide ordering/invoicing and delivery from Beckman Coulter, seamlessly from day one.
* integration into the Beckman Coulter business systems are well underway
* we have gone a long way to integrate the organisation – the Olympus office at Watford has closed and all of the staff are now operating from our UK headquarters in High Wycombe
* all of our instruments have been rebranded and all reagents are now being supplied branded as Beckman Coulter
* we have begun the process of cross-training for our sales and support people.
We are running certain processes in parallel, such as hotline and order telephone numbers, but we will notify our customers before these change.
Overall, what will be the impact for customers and specifically the UK diagnostics industry?
The integration will deliver specific benefits to the UK marketplace as it struggles to contain costs while delivering a 21st-century health service to an ageing, well-informed population making increasing demands.
With the expected reduction in health service funds of 20% over the coming years, managed service contracts are now the solution of choice for procurement managers, with approximately 80% of tenders now taking this form.
Innovative examples of NHS trusts collaborating have seen groups joining forces across boundary lines to procure equipment to fully automate their core laboratory processes. One of the first to do this was when Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust collaborated with three other trusts to appoint Beckman Coulter UK to handle a seven-year managed service automation contract.
We know that diagnostic test results influence more than 70% of healthcare decisions, and impact on early diagnosis, treatment monitoring and disease management. Beckman Coulter’s business focus, both in the UK and globally, is solely to serve the laboratory to the best of its ability.
With our expanded menu of more than 600 diagnostic tests, and the broadest range of chemistry analysers and automation systems in the world, we can deliver a competitive solution to our laboratory customers – whatever their throughput or specific requirements. We are concentrating on providing complete systems – hardware, software and reagents – that work together to meet customer demand.
Talking to many Pathology in Practice readers at Congress, it became clear that they welcome and understand the expansion as a perfect ‘fit’. They know and respect the products. By incorporating AU systems into the Beckman Coulter offering, UK laboratories confidently expect that they will benefit specifically in terms of ‘best of class’ solutions. Congress was very much a key sounding board for us. It was clear that with the Olympus integration and our global consolidation across all platforms, Beckman Coulter is now seen to be in a very strong position to be even more successful in the UK marketplace.