By Brazil Stock Guide — Hapvida has signed a nine-year agreement with Roche Diagnostics to modernize and automate its laboratory testing operations, covering two major technical hubs and 57 hospitals across its network.
Under the agreement, Roche will invest about R$250 million to upgrade and automate the technology infrastructure used by Hapvida. The Brazilian healthcare group, in turn, expects to spend up to R$1.5 billion over the nine-year period on services and supplies related to the operation.
The agreement makes Roche Hapvida’s exclusive technology provider for its vertically integrated laboratory testing operations during the contract period.
The project covers Hapvida’s Technical Operations Centers in São Paulo and Recife, as well as laboratories operating inside 57 hospitals. The company said the new structure should lead to greater equipment standardization, lower waste and higher productivity.
A total of 212 new pieces of equipment will be added to Hapvida’s operations, supporting areas including clinical chemistry, immunology, hematology and point-of-care testing.
According to the company, the two main technical hubs currently process about 7.5 million tests per month. Hapvida also estimates annual volumes of 32 million tests in Recife, 28.4 million in São Paulo and another 20.2 million across the hospitals included in the project.
Operating efficiency
The project, named Orion, is designed to increase laboratory productivity and lower operating costs through greater automation and the concentration of testing volumes on standardized platforms.
The strategy is particularly relevant to Hapvida’s vertically integrated business model, under which health plans, hospitals, clinics and diagnostic services operate within the same network. The greater the company’s ability to control the cost of services provided internally, the greater its potential to capture efficiency gains.
Hapvida also said the project will give it additional capacity to absorb future growth without requiring a proportional expansion of its laboratory infrastructure.
“Establishing this long-term partnership with a global leader in diagnostics takes us to a new level in terms of production capacity and innovation,” Hapvida CEO Luccas Augusto Adib said in a statement.
Scale
Hapvida serves nearly 16 million health and dental plan members and operates one of Brazil’s largest proprietary private healthcare networks. The company has 84 hospitals, 75 urgent care units, 367 medical clinics and 313 diagnostic imaging and laboratory collection centers.
For Roche, the agreement secures a large-scale customer for most of the next decade and expands its presence in one of Brazil’s largest private diagnostic medicine operations.
The companies also expect the modernization effort to reduce the use of supplies and the generation of waste. According to the statement, the new technology could eliminate around 3,000 kilograms of solid waste per year.
The transition to the new equipment will take place in phases and will be overseen by a joint committee formed by Roche and Hapvida to avoid disruptions to laboratory operations.
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