Home Medical Centers as Suppliers Why Collaborate?

Why would medical centers collaborate?

Medical centers may consider collaborating with commercial repositories in order to advance medical research and play a peripheral role in the development of new treatment options and therapies. Collecting and banking tissue that would otherwise be discarded makes good use of otherwise discarded surgical materials (e.g. excised human tissue) with no medical risks to patients (since the tissue was removed for diagnostic purposes).

Secondly, there may be attractive incentives for a medical center to become a tissue collection site. Chief among the incentives is access to research quality tissue either collected on site or as part of a large inventory at the repository. Local researchers at medical centers with little or no banked tissue may receive reduce rates for accessing locally collected tissue that is stored at a collaborating repository. This can be beneficial for advancing local research. Other incentives may include support for additional pathology staff (including research nurses) and equipment provided to the hospital by the repository company. In some cases, there also may be financial incentives available that include price breaks on repository tissue, overhead costs and profit to the medical center, or equity in the repository company.