LabCorp 2014 Annual Report Download - page 12

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Pillar Three: Continue to improve efficiency to remain the most efficient and highest value provider of laboratory services
The Company maintains a constant focus on improving productivity and lowering costs throughout all phases of its operations
from specimen collection to processing and testing, result reporting and billing. The Company's automation initiatives,
improvements to its logistics network and enhancements to its supply chain operations have increased its per-employee throughput
in primary laboratories more than 50% since the beginning of 2008. The Company has also focused on its call center operations
by improving call response time while enhancing efficiency by reducing the number of call center facilities by over 65%. Further,
the Company's service metrics, customer satisfaction ratings and turnaround times consistently exceed expectations.
In 2014, the Company continued to streamline operations and reduce expenses through facility rationalization. The Company
completed the consolidation of its facility in Uniondale, New York and cytogenetics lab in Monrovia, California into its Shelton,
Connecticut and Santa Fe, New Mexico laboratories, respectively. The Company continues to expand its test offering and leverage
increased capacity in its Center for Specialty and Clinical Testing located in Phoenix, Arizona, which began testing operations in
September 2013. This world class facility is an example of the Company’s commitment to re-engineering its business in order to
provide a better operating platform, sustainable long-term savings and an improved customer experience.
In 2014, the Company completed the installation of its PropelTM robot in its Tampa, Florida laboratory and preparations are
underway to deploy PropelTM in the Dublin, Ohio and Birmingham, Alabama facilities. These installations support the Company’s
strategy to deploy PropelTM throughout its network of major laboratories. The Company expects this automation to enhance
efficiency and quality where installed by replacing the manual splitting and sorting process. PropelTM complements LabCorp
Touch® and AccuDraw® accessioning, which provides leading-edge automation at the Company’s PSCs and over 800 physician-
office phlebotomy locations. LabCorp Touch® and AccuDraw® improve quality and test result availability, and allows the Company
to reduce the amount of accessioning that is performed in its primary laboratories.
In 2014, the Company completed the update of its core chemistry platform through the rollout of the Roche COBAS chemistry
instrumentation. This installation included the adoption of a new middleware application, which provides staff with advanced
logic and analytics during the review of patient results. This middleware will be implemented across additional testing areas in
2015.
As part of an ongoing commitment to efficiency, the Company is undergoing a comprehensive, enterprise-wide business process
improvement initiative, referred to as Project LaunchPad. The Company is reengineering its systems and processes to leverage
technological advancements, create a sustainable and more efficient business model, and improve the experience of all stakeholders.
The Company expects this initiative to drive net savings in excess of $100.0 million over the next three years.
Pillar Four: Continue scientific innovation to offer new tests at reasonable and appropriate pricing
Innovative tests continue to be an important growth driver for the Company. In 2014, the Company introduced 174 new assays,
collaborating with leading companies and academic institutions to provide physicians and patients with the most scientifically
advanced testing in the industry.
The Company is playing an important role in many aspects of the emerging model of personalized health care in which treatments
and therapeutics are tailored to an individual, often based on his or her genetic signature (or that of a particular tumor/strain of
virus). LabCorp is a leader in HIV genotyping, one of the first major advances in personalized medicine, which is used to test for
resistance to specific drugs. The Company continues to build on this legacy through publications and the development of new
tests and/or resources such as the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA")-approved Prosigna™ Breast Cancer Prognostic Gene
Signature Assay, which can assess the probability of breast cancer recurrence in certain patients.
The Company continues to invest in and deploy its next-generation sequencing (“NGS”) capabilities. Throughout 2014, LabCorp
experienced strong growth with its BRCA test menu for the assessment of breast cancer risk aided by its launch of the BRCA NGS
assay, which includes a comprehensive panel of BRCA 1 and 2 complete gene sequence analysis and deletion/duplication testing,
targeted analysis tests for other family members once a mutation is identified, and a panel for mutations prevalent among people
of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. The Company also introduced HIV GenoSure ArchiveSM, the first genotypic drug resistance assay
specifically designed to support individualized drug selection for HIV-1 patients with low or undetectable viral loads. HIV
GenoSure ArchiveSM was developed using a NGS platform.
The Company's test menu expansion in 2014 includes the extensive portfolio of Thermo Scientific ImmunoCAP™ allergy
testing products from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., and informaSeqSM Prenatal Test, a non-invasive prenatal screening test that
can assess risk for abnormalities in the number of chromosomes from a single maternal blood draw.