Roche: ‘Doing Now What Patients Need Next’
Randy Pritchard is the senior vice president for U.S. marketing at Roche Diagnostics. (IIB Photo/Joe Ulery)
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAs the coronavirus pandemic continues, there are increasing examples of the business community coming together to attack the crisis, including here in Indiana. This week Roche Diagnostics will send the third batch of 400,000 coronavirus test kits from its North American headquarters in Indianapolis to laboratories across the United States. An all hands on deck approach included Roche scientists on the west coast, manufacturing on the east coast and instrument designers in Switzerland to get product ready for distribution from Indiana in record time.
“Our standard process can be anywhere from an 18 to 24 month period,” said Roche Diagnostics Senior Vice President for U.S. Marketing Randy Pritchard. “In this situation, thanks to incredibly tight alignment with our research and development team, the Food and Drug Administration and many, many other officials, we were actually able to do this in six weeks.”
Pritchard talked about the company’s coronavirus efforts on this weekend’s edition of Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.
Roche Diagnostics is a major player in Indiana’s life sciences sector, its sprawling North American headquarters home to some 3,000 employees on the far northeast side of Indianapolis.
“This is our commercial hub for North America,” said Pritchard. “Three thousand people dedicated every day to helping patients…doing now what patients need next is what we talk about.”
Pritchard says the company’s Indianapolis campus is on lockdown, at red level alert with only essential employees allowed in. But he says the infrastructure is in place to continue to continue a project that employees feel very special about.
“It’s certainly a tremendous amount of pride, but also we know there is still a lot of work to do.”