Roche problems in UK threaten wide range of tests, treatments - biomedical body

LONDON (Reuters) - A logistics failure at a Roche <ROG.S> facility in England has caused deliveries of materials used in tests for COVID and other conditions not to take place, and problems could escalate, the head of a professional biomedical body said on Wednesday.

Roche said earlier it regretted that there had been delays in dispatching some products and these were due to unforeseen problems at a new distribution centre.

Allan Wilson, head of the Institute of Biomedical Science, said problems with supplies from Roche had started to emerge about a week ago and were affecting not only COVID tests but also diagnostic and treatment materials for other conditions.

"The frustration is that they seem to have a warehouse full of consumables but are unable to ship them because the logistics system put in place to manage the extraction and identification of consumables and picking them to send them to customers has failed," Wilson told Reuters in a telephone interview.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Alistair Smout)