Roche spent more than $10 billion to buy Boehringer Mannheim. Now it has to justify its investment. Roche believes that the outlook for diagnostics is bright and it sees growth in all of its four diagnostic business units, particularly patient care and molecular systems.

i-Stat Corp., a leader in the point of care diagnostics business, is teaming up with Abbott Diagnostics to sell its hand-held POC devices to hospitals and clinics. The deal signals a change of heart on the part of both companies: Abbott has been sitting on the sidelines of the non-blood glucose POC market, watching it evolve, while i-Stat early on gained a reputation for trying to bypass laboratories in favor of selling directly to other hospital departments. Now, Abbott, which has a strong hold on clinical labs, will be taking over responsibility for all i-Stat sales, with the exception of territories carved out by another i-Stat partner, Hewlett-Packard.

Diametrics is moving beyond the perception that it is an also-ran to point-of-care diagnostics market leader i-Stat, as it stives to become a major player in critical care diagnostics

As laboratories consolidate and form networks to reduce costs and improve efficiency, some embrace POC whole-heartedly, extolling its ability to save money. Others are eliminating whatever POC testing they currently offer, investing instead in infrastructure to improve efficiency and turn around times in their central laboratories.