A Medical Device Daily

Embattled biologics supplierSeraCare Life Sciences (Oceanside, California) yesterday unveiled plans to consolidate its facilities and streamline operations.

In a statement, the company said it will move its Oceanside operations into its Milford, Massachusetts, plant, acquired earlier this year from Celliance , a subsidiary of Serologicals (Atlanta) (Medical Device Daily, Jan. 13, 2006).

Tom Lawlor, COO and interim CEO, said the company had been planning the move “for a while and believe this natural integration will eliminate redundancies, improve the quality of our products and services, and achieve synergies that will help drive the organizational efficiencies to the next level.“

The company did not say whether the consolidation would produce any personnel reductions.

The move is a response to a variety of recent financial issues and uncertainties.

In March, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, shortly after reporting problems in its internal controls and the firing of Chairman Barry Plost, President and CEO Michael Crowley Jr., Secretary Jerry Burdick and CFO Craig Hooson (MDD, March 24, 2006). With that report, it also said that its FY05 guidance was to be withdrawn because of its unreliability, and that its financial statements for the quarters ended Dec. 31, 2004; March 31, 2005; and June 30, 2005, would be restated.

And earlier this month the company reported receiving a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission (MDD, April 10, 2006), a follow-on to a request from the commission for delivery to it of certain documents.

Lawlor said the consolidation “allows us to take full advantage of the breadth and depth of our organization. The state-of-the-art facilities and integrated systems in Milford will facilitate higher levels of service and support to our customers. We anticipate no impact upon product delivery during the transition. Over the longer term, customers will benefit from better service and enhanced offerings.“

The statement said that the Milford facility is a cGMP-compliant, ISO 9001 certified facility, and that the consolidation “will increase process efficiencies, streamline manufacturing, centralize inventory control, and integrate quality control systems.“

SeraCare is a manufacturer of biological products and services to diagnostic, therapeutic, drug discovery, and research organizations.

The company's offerings include plasma-based therapeutic products, diagnostic products and reagents, cell culture products, specialty plasmas, in vitro stabilizers, and the SeraCare BioBank, a database of medical information and associated blood, plasma, DNA and RNA samples.