What you'll find here
If you're evaluating Roche Diagnostics equipment—whether it's immunology analyzers, point-of-care systems, or molecular diagnostics—you've likely hit the same wall. The catalogue is deep, the specs are dense, and the sales materials don't always answer the practical questions.
This FAQ covers the questions I hear most often from hospital procurement teams and lab managers. It's based on internal data from 200+ equipment evaluations I've been part of at a mid-sized hospital network, plus conversations with colleagues at larger institutions.
1. How do I actually find what I need in the Roche Diagnostics catalogue?
It's not as intuitive as you'd hope.
The online catalogue (roche-diagnostics.com) is organized by diagnostic area—immunochemistry, clinical chemistry, molecular, hematology, urinalysis, coagulation, and point of care. That sounds straightforward, but the real friction is that many products span multiple categories.
For example: the cobas® 6800/8800 systems handle both molecular and immunology workflows. If you're searching only under "Molecular Diagnostics," you might miss it entirely.
My shortcut: Search the catalogue by workflow rather than by product type. Use terms like "high-throughput immunology" or "integrated chemistry analyzer" instead of just the product name. And if you're looking for specific consumables (reagents, calibrators, control materials), search by assay name—that's how Roche categorizes them internally.
When I first started coordinating evaluations, I assumed the catalogue would list everything neatly by department. Three hours of fruitless clicking later, I learned to search by application instead.
2. Does Roche Diagnostics offer blood tests for allergies?
Short answer: yes, but it's not what most people think.
Roche doesn't sell "allergy blood tests" as standalone kits directly to consumers. What they do offer is the ImmunoCAP™ allergology system (via their diagnostics portfolio), which is used by clinical laboratories to run specific IgE testing for common allergens—pollen, dust mites, food allergens, pet dander, etc.
The confusion comes from the way allergy testing is marketed. What Roche sells to hospitals and labs is the instrumentation and reagents to run these tests in-house, not a direct-to-patient service. So if you're a lab manager evaluating whether to bring allergy testing in-house, the cobas® 4000 series or ImmunoCAP 250/1000 systems are worth looking at.
From the outside, it looks like Roche just offers general diagnostic equipment. The reality is they have a dedicated allergology assay menu covering over 100 specific allergens (based on their published test menu, accessed January 2025). That's deeper than many specialty labs realize.
3. Can Roche diagnostics integrate with an operating table environment?
This is a question I get more than you'd expect.
The short answer: Roche point-of-care (POC) systems are designed for near-patient testing, which can include OR environments. The cobas® b 101 system, for example, is small enough to set up in or near an operating suite for rapid blood gas, electrolyte, and coagulation testing.
But integration with an operating table specifically? That's a different conversation. Roche's POC systems aren't physically mounted onto surgical tables (that's more the domain of specialized intraoperative monitoring equipment).
What they can do is integrate into the hospital's central data management system (cobas® IT 3000, for instance), which feeds results directly into the OR's electronic health record. So the workflow is: draw blood in the OR → bring it to a nearby POC analyzer → results are automatically sent to the surgeon's console or nursing station.
I learned never to assume "integration" means physical connectivity. When I was coordinating our hospital's OR upgrade in early 2024, I initially asked about mounting diagnostics onto surgical tables. The colleagues who laughed at that question taught me to focus on data integration instead of hardware placement. It's a different problem entirely.
4. Is portable ultrasound part of Roche Diagnostics?
No—and this is a common point of confusion.
Roche Diagnostics does not manufacture or sell ultrasound equipment. Their focus is in vitro diagnostics (IVD)—analyzing blood, urine, and other bodily fluids in a lab or near-patient setting. Ultrasound is imaging technology, which falls under radiology/medical imaging, not diagnostics in the Roche sense.
The confusion likely comes from the fact that many hospital purchasing decisions bundle diagnostic equipment with imaging systems under a single procurement contract. You might see a request for proposal that lists "Roche Diagnostics" alongside "ultrasound vendors" because the procurement team categorizes everything as "diagnostic equipment."
If you need portable ultrasound, you're looking at companies like GE Healthcare, Philips, or Siemens Healthineers—but not Roche.
5. What's the role of mass spectrometry in Roche's portfolio?
Mass spectrometry isn't a core Roche product, but it's increasingly relevant.
Roche doesn't manufacture mass spectrometers themselves. They do offer mass spectrometry testing solutions through their integrative diagnostics strategy—meaning they provide the reagents, software, and workflow integration to connect mass spec data with their existing diagnostic platforms.
In practice, this means: if your lab runs LC-MS/MS (liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry) for vitamin D, hormone panels, or therapeutic drug monitoring, Roche's cobas® connection software can bridge the results into your central lab reporting system alongside your Roche chemistry and immunology results.
What Roche is not doing is competing directly with mass spec vendors like Thermo Fisher, SCIEX, or Waters. Instead, they're positioning themselves as the integration layer between mass spec data and the broader diagnostic ecosystem.
It's tempting to think "if Roche doesn't sell it, they don't support it." But their digital health and AI diagnostics strategy specifically includes integrating third-party data streams (Source: Roche Digital Diagnostics strategy page, January 2025).
6. How do I calculate the real cost of Roche equipment—not just the sticker price?
This is where most procurement teams make their biggest mistake.
I used to compare quotes strictly by unit price. Then I ran a cost comparison for our hematology analyzer upgrade in Q3 2024 and learned the hard way.
