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Reagent pricing increases-Immucor and Ortho


conwaysbb

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I wanted to know what effect the recent price increases from both Immucor and Ortho have done to your budgets. Also how has this effected the relattionship with you major supplier, how has this changed your point of view on your major supplier and do you think the recent astronomical increase in pricing are truly the effect of recent manufacturing expenses or is it because their are only two major blood banking reagent players now?

To start, I will give you my answers/opinions.

My budget for 2005 was required to be in by August 2004. The notification form my major reagent supplier was sent to me in November, 2004. This caused my pricing to increase an average of 87%, almost $50, 000 increase. This on top of the previous years increase, consolidation of available reagents or discontinuation of reagents and a increase in customer service complaints due to shipping/non-shipping issues.

I have been told that Ortho, which I do not use, has increased their pricing 200-400%. I am having my Ortho rep come in this week to talk to me and verify what I have been hearing. I know this has effected my relationship with my sales rep and Immucor. There reasoning for the sharp increase in pricing seems to be very thin and does not correlate with what they reported to their own stockholders. (Lab administrator has read the stockholder's report).

I do not know if the 200% -400% increase in reagent pricing by Ortho is true, but it is my opinion that Immucor is taking advantage of this situation and raising their pricing accordingly, but not as much as Ortho to take advantage of dissatisfaction by customers who Immucor expects to jump shift. (which incidentially is is one of the reasons Immucor says is the cause of price increase as they have to increase production and add new shifts).

I also firmly believe that after BCA went out of business and Immucor adsorbed some of their manufacturing, plus Immucor's takeover/merger with Gamma, that left only two major players available and we are now seeing the result of the monopoly of Blood Banking reagents by Ortho and Immucor.

But that is just my opinion.

What's your take?

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Ortho notified us of their price increase long before Immucor did and it was even higher than Immucor. There is not a lot you can do short of turning the clock back 30 years and make your own reagents. I still remember making my own reverse cells and check cells. Work out the best deal you can with one of the two suppliers, what else can you do?

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Ortho notified us of their price increase long before Immucor did and it was even higher than Immucor. There is not a lot you can do short of turning the clock back 30 years and make your own reagents. I still remember making my own reverse cells and check cells. Work out the best deal you can with one of the two suppliers, what else can you do?

If you don't mind , would you be able to tell me the % increase that Ortho was notifying you and what Immucor was notifying you? What vendor did you select and why.

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Both Ortho and Immucor are pushing their automated testing, Provue and Galileo. By drastically increasing their tube testing reagent price, it makes it more cost effective to drop tube testing and go to automation.

Like it or not, I predict that ,within five years, most hospital blood banks will not be doing tube testing.

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I would agree with all of the above. I feel that both manufacturers are trying to push their customers away from traditional tube testing. We are primarily an Ortho customer. Price increases were 2-3X our prices for last year. We were looking a converting over to Immucor when they announced their increase (and at the same time canceled their Novation contract that had just been completed. The timing is a little too coincidental for me!) As already stated I do feel that we are seeing the results of only 2 manufacturers.

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And to add insult to injury, try ordering extra red cell reagents out of cycle. Too bad if you have an extra busy month (more platelet crossmatches than usual, temporary increase in type and screens). Neither company is necessarily able to send you any in the middle of the manufacturing cycle. Too bad for patient care!

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I know this has been pointedly addressed by the sales reps that they are forcing their clients to move to automation, especially by Ortho. That being said, does anyone know the actual difference between the % price increase between the traditional tube reagents and the automation reagents?

Does anyone think that this is unfair business practices? Maybe it is time now not to go to the FDA and complain but to the Federal Trade Commision and ask them if this is a unfair monopolistic trade on the part of the two major players.

Your opinions are appreciated.

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Has anyone investigated the possibility of switching to the new Olympus reagents? What does their pricing look like and do their reagents and reagent red cells look like they could compete with either Ortho or Immucor?

My administration is NOT HAPPY about the major price increase with Immucor and as someone said above, Immucor's reason for price increases doesn't square up with their stock reports over the past few years that brag about the huge return profits they are making for their investors.

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I am an ORTHO user in a 150 bed hospital in Maine and also am dissatisfied with the reasons for the massive accross the board price increases. There do not appear to be any "manufacturing reasons" however they sure are pushinh thier MTS Gel casset system for ABO/RH testing which uses a lot less reagnt than one drop and cost per test was a lot higher than tube but now approaches the same. Our reason for not converting to thier Gel Card ABO/RH is time to perform the test. We have the 2nd busiest ED in the state and 10-12 min to wait for an ABO/RH is not acceptable.

It apears the lack of competition has led to a little price gouging. Mabe we should all send letters to our Senators and Representatives as well as to local news media for investigations to be initiated?

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Olympus does have dedicated blood bank reagents for both the PK7200 (donor) and the TANGO (hospital) instruments. However, they do distribute some manual blood banking reagents. These include antibody screening cells, a panel, reverse cells, check cells and a QC kit. They have more information on their web page if you're interested.

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I did get a fairly decent price break from Immucor by signing a letter of intent that I would buy 90% of my reagents from them. The cost went up but not like Ortho or Immucor without a letter of intent. Here's what I'm dealing with: Screeing Cell Trio in 01 was 6.40, 03 was 21.78 and in 05 will be 72.00. If we project that out for 10 years it gets really scary. I agree that the manufacturers are trying to make the reagents for tube testing and automated testing equally expensive. I don't know enough about the law to know whether we can take it to the FDA but it might be worth a try.

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Notice to all:

Are the reagents, with relation to price increases, raw material plasmas or are they in finished form? I do supply rare antibody plasma to numerous companies including the ones mentioned and funny thing is, I havent given price increases to anyone for quite some time now. Thanks for the info and I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has a need for raw materials rare antibody plasma.

Best Regards,

Teri

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Dear Members,

Are the reagents, with relation to price increases, raw material plasmas or are they in finished form? I do supply rare antibody plasma to numerous companies including the ones mentioned and funny thing is, I havent given price increases to anyone for quite some time now. Thanks for the info and I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has a need for raw materials rare antibody plasma.

Best Regards,

Teri

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just found out that Immucor is discontinuing anti-Jkb and anti Lewis-B and other reagent antisera are on backorder. Told us we have to go to another supplier, Ortho. Now I have to pay even higher prices because Immucor doesn't want to fully serve their customers.

WOW, talk about poor customer service!!!!

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When we submitted our next year's budget figures we included a spreadsheet provided by our Ortho rep detailing the price increases. Our finance people initially thought the figures were a mistake, and were shocked when they realized it was not a typo! Our 2004 costs were in the $5000 ballpark; our projected 2005 costs will be near $50,000! If we switch to an Immucor 90% agreement, we can bring it down to around $35,000.

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I will just add that we use Ortho reagents, and the increase quoted by our rep was 150% for tube testing reagents. He then suggested that we purchase their new instrument, which would then give us free reagents. I suspect they are trying to force us into Gel and into their instruments. :mad: We are already using Gel, so I would think we should get a price break on the tube testing reagents, but not so. I sure can't drop tube testing altogether. Special techniques are still done by tube, and I also don't want to wait 10 minutes to get a blood type on a trauma patient!!!

Diane Shepherd

Bay Area Hospital

Coos Bay, OR

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When we submitted our next year's budget figures we included a spreadsheet provided by our Ortho rep detailing the price increases. Our finance people initially thought the figures were a mistake, and were shocked when they realized it was not a typo! Our 2004 costs were in the $5000 ballpark; our projected 2005 costs will be near $50,000! If we switch to an Immucor 90% agreement, we can bring it down to around $35,000.

Still, you are going from a $5000 budget to a $35000 budget. I am sure they still are shocked at the price increase. I don't know how customer service is for Ortho, but Immucor's customer service has been very trying lately!!!

Both Ortho and Immucor are trying to get everyone to automation. This is their intent and they are both open about this. Makes them more money, both in instrument fees, and reagents instead of just reagents. Immucor justifies it in many ways, even up to telling their stockholders that the price increase will not significantly increase patient fees for blood bank testing and is just a very small protion of the transfusion charges, so no big effect to the patient.

But you are right, $35,000 is better than $50,000, at least that is what you hope for.

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