Mayo Clinic to Shut Down New England Laboratory

The Mayo Clinic is pulling back on its laboratory operations in the Eastern U.S. The hospital system’s for-profit Mayo Clinic Laboratories subsidiary will shut down its laboratory in Andover, Mass. by the end of this year, officials said. The operations of Mayo Medical Laboratories New England will be transferred to Rochester, Minn., where the Mayo Clinic is headquartered, in phases throughout this calendar year.

The Mayo Clinic entered the East Coast market with the acquisition of New England Pathology Services in the 1990s. However, it became clear to the legendary health care provider that the Massachusetts lab had become disconnected from the rest of its clinical operations. Its long-term lease for the facility was expiring, and Mayo management decided they did not wish to renew for another decade.

Quest Diagnostics also recently opened a massive 200,000 squarefoot laboratory in nearby Marlborough, Mass.,—the result in part of its 2012 acquisition of the outreach business of the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center. That likely is making the competitive environment for lab services in Central Massachusetts extraordinarily fierce. Quest also briefly hired Mayo Lab’s former CEO in the autumn of 2014 as its chief laboratory officer, although he resigned his new position after Mayo sued.

“This testing facility is a highly successful operation in terms of quality, safety, productivity, and cost efficiency,” said William Morice, M.D., chair of Mayo’s pathology and laboratory medicine departments, in a statement. “However, the facility is not near a Mayo Clinic medical practice. Our decision is based upon the long-term future for this facility, not the great work that is performed here every day.”

With high margin molecular testing being performed in Minnesota, the New England laboratory primarily performed toxicology, microbiology, immunology and vitamin deficiency testing. It offers a menu of about 400 assays in total. That’s a fraction of the 3,000 or so tests and pathology procedures Mayo Clinic Laboratories offers in total. The laboratory division has also entered into deals with a variety of esoteric laboratories to offer their tests to patients.

“The initial focus of the laboratory was supporting (Mayo’s) now-discontinued clinical trials testing service line, but the test menu has evolved into locally performed high-volume tests from our clients in the Northeast,” said Mayo Clinic spokesperson Gina Chiri-Osmond.

Chiri-Osmond declined to say what the monthly testing volume was, or how it has changed over the years. It had developed a significant outreach business, but no specifics on that were available.

Altogether, the laboratory employs 105 people. All of them may keep their jobs if they are willing to relocate.

“Our hope is that all of the staff would want to continue their careers at other Mayo locations (the system has facilities in Florida, and Arizona as well as Minnesota, with a laboratory facility in Jacksonville, Fla.). We would offer relocation packages for them,” Chiri-Osmond said. “However, for those who choose not to stay with Mayo, we are offering severance packages based on their length of service with Mayo.”

Takeaway: The Mayo Clinic is rolling back and consolidating a portion of its wide-ranging laboratory operations.