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Business Buzz Saw Hits Anatomic Path Firms
CEO SUMMARY: In recent years, both companies have enjoyed sustained and rapid growth in offering anatomic pathology (AP) services nationally. The departure of CFOs from both companies, each for different reasons, is a sign that such unbridled growth has created unique problems for each AP…
Commercial Lab JVs With Hospitals Are Declining In Number
CEO SUMMARY: There are many reasons why a properly-designed and well-managed laboratory test joint venture (JV) between a commercial lab company and a hospital should succeed. But no matter how strong such concepts look on paper, the real world has proven to be a harsh environment. A hand…
Pharmacy Web-Ordering Now A Physician Priority
STRONG PRESSURES ARE MOTIVATING office-based physicians to adopt electronic ordering for prescriptions. In part, this is because of the drive to eliminate unnecessary medical errors. Estimates are that 6% of the nation’s physicians now use an electronic method to order prescriptions for their pati…
Specialty Labs Coping With Unique Challenges
CEO SUMMARY: Few laboratory executives have ever been tested as intensely as those of Specialty Laboratories, Inc. Since the first of the year, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated has purchased two of its biggest lab clients. In April, state and federal lab regulators issued sanctions. Both de…
High Cost of New Assays Stretching Lab Budgets
CEO SUMMARY: Growing numbers of hospital labs report that higher costs of new diagnostic tests have become a new management problem. That’s because diagnostic manufacturers are developing tests around a new business model, one that calls for higher pricing based on a premise of higher c…
Is Physicians’ Office Testing Evolving Toward an Oligopoly?
CEO SUMMARY: One of the most unpopular industries with consumers is the airline industry. At the national level, it is an oligopoly—dominated by seven carriers. But in many cities, it is a monopoly, with one airline flying 80% of the seats in and out of town. Ongoing consolidation of re…
State, Federal Regulators Target Specialty Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Specialty Laboratories, Inc. has earned the dubious honor of being the first-ever publicly-traded laboratory to have its CLIA-88 license revoked by federal regulators, terminating its right to payment for services covered by Medicare and Medicaid. The revocation is slated to …
Quest Pays $1.1 Billion To Acquire Unilab Corp.
CEO SUMMARY: Quest Diagnostics Incorporated is showing its muscle. The dust had hardly settled on its $500 million acquisition of American Medical Laboratories when the lab industry’s behemoth announced that it would pay $1.1 billion to buy Unilab, by far the largest lab testing company…
Ken Freeman Discusses Plans to Integrate AML and Unilab
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, Ken Freeman and Quest Diagnostics Incorporated is altering the national market for clinical laboratory testing. By acquiring American Medical Laboratories and Unilab, the nation’s largest lab company is expanding its presence in California, Nevada, and Washingto…
Clinical Decision Support Systems Arrive
FORWARD THINKERS IN CLINICAL LABORATORIES and anatomic pathology groups have always recognized the substantial, but as yet unharvested, potential that would accrue to the healthcare system were clinicians to make better use of laboratory testing. All of us know stories and anecdotes about how certai…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 12 – August 25, 2025
In an exclusive interview, a laboratory industry M&A specialist discusses what’s driving lab outreach sales to national lab companies. Also, The Dark Report analyzes ways in which pathology and clinical labs can profitably partner with pharmaceutical companies.
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