Interview with Nina Beikert, Managing Director of Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH

Greater than the sum of its parts When a new company achieves the feat of establishing itself in a saturated market within just a couple of years, it must be doing something right. Admittedly, Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH did not start out completely from zero when it was established in 2011. It was founded through the merger of the laboratory services of the two leading hospital pro-viders in Berlin, Charité and Vivantes. It was thought that the merger of the erstwhile com-petitors could create favourable synergies and allow the new entity to open itself to the ex-ternal market. This vision has already become a reality and Labor Berlin is now one of the biggest providers of laboratory diagnostics in Germany.

With more than 10% annual

growth in the external sales over

the last five years, Labor Berlin is

growing significantly faster than

the market. Managing Director

Nina Beikert attributes this phe-

nomenal success to its unique

history. “Of all the providers cur-

rently active in the market, we are

the one that best understands the

needs of hospital clients,” she ex-

plains. “We started out in hospitals

and are well accustomed to work-

ing together with them and finding

ways to optimize their processes to

ensure better patient care.”

Anyone who has ever spent any

time in hospital as a patient will

be familiar with the daily routine

of blood and other tests. “We deal

with over 13,000 patient samples

every day and cover more than

80% of the available hospital beds

in Berlin,” says Ms. Beikert. “We

deliver results within 30 minutes

for emergencies and within three

hours for routine diagnostics.” As

well as speed, Labor Berlin also

guarantees quality. “We work for a

university-affiliated teaching hos-

pital where the demands are par-

ticularly high,” adds Ms. Beikert.

“Furthermore, many of our labora-

tory heads also perform functions

within the teaching hospital so that

when a clinician rings up about a

test, they find themselves talking

to their peers, someone with an

intimate knowledge of the situation

in the hospital. This means that

we can be sure of speaking the

same language as our clients and

offering them the right consulting

and diagnostics.” As 70% of all di-

agnosis are based on the result of

laboratory tests, quality is a crucial

aspect of the service.

Diagnostic testing is an evolving

field of medicine in which novel

tests for new diseases are con-

stantly being developed. Labor

Berlin is also at the forefront of

these developments, investing

750,000 EUR this year alone in

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Over 70% of medical diagnosis are based on labora-tory diagnostics

Labor Berlin deals with 13,000 patient samples eve-ry day, returning results within less than three hours

Nina Beikert, Managing Director of Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH

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Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH Sylter Strasse 2 13353 Berlin Germany

+49 30 405026100 +49 30 405026600

info@laborberlin.com www.laborberlin.com

application-relevant research and

development on highly innovative

projects that will allow it to maintain

its quality leadership in the future.

“We have placed great emphasis

on excellence in all areas of our

business,” states Ms. Beikert. “Our

laboratories are equipped with the

latest state-of-the-art automated

analyzers while we have also been

at pains to recruit experts who are

specialized in the various areas of

expertise required.”

Labor Berlin employs more than

550 people at thirteen laboratories

located in hospitals across Berlin.

Its proximity to its hospital clients

allows it to guarantee a prompt

service. “One of the reasons be-

hind the merger was also to target

other clients like external hospitals

or private practitioners,” says Ms.

Beikert. “This we have achieved

by targeting big hospitals as well

as specialized practices such as

oncologists or nephrologists, for

whom high quality of diagnostics

and consultation from their labora-

tory is essential.” Since the merger,

the ratio of third party work under-

taken by Labor Berlin has risen to

almost 20%. “It has been very suc-

cessful and allowed us to create

more than 100 additional jobs,”

adds Ms. Beikert. “What is more,

we have been able to expand our

radius of activity beyond Berlin.

For example we cooperate with

German Red Cross clinics as well

as leading hospitals in cities such

as Frankfurt and Chemnitz.”

Innovation is one of the key driv-

ers of this expansion. Thanks to

its pioneering work in dried blood

spot cards, Labor Berlin is able

to carry out diagnostic testing for

clients around the world. “We are

for example offering an innovative

diagnostic tool for patients with

depression,” explains Ms. Beikert.

“On the basis of genetic testing,

we are able to say which family

of medications will work best on

which patients. The focus is cur-

rently on Germany but we also

have samples submitted from far

away.” The ability to work for an in-

novative company operating at the

cutting edge of developments in

its field is a strong pull factor when

recruiting new staff. In addition

Labor Berlin works to create an at-

tractive working environment with

offers aimed at enhancing work/life

balance such as free gym mem-

bership, emergency child care or

a work bicycle for the daily com-

mute. “We want to help our em-

ployees achieve their career goals

as well as lifestyle aims,” says Ms.

Beikert. “As a young, creative and

dynamic company, we want our

working conditions to reflect that

ethos. We have also implemented

Trainee programmes for laboratory

technicians and even medical spe-

cialists to ensure we maximize the

pool of potential candidates from

which we can recruit. After getting

off to such a strong start, our goal

is on sustainable growth in the

coming years.” There are plenty of

topics to keep Labor Berlin busy

in the future. “A big issue at the

moment is the problem of over-

prescription of antibiotics,” says

Ms. Beikert. “We want to see how

we can structure diagnostic testing

in such a way that antibiotics are

only used when they are needed.

But other medications could also

be dosed more effectively, thus re-

ducing side effects for the patient

and society. These are all projects

where we have a useful contribu-

tion to make.”

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Labor Berlin’s headquarters is next to the Charité Virchow-Klinikum in Berlin Wedding

Labor Berlin’s thirteen laboratories in Berlin are equipped with state-of-the-art automated analyzers

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