Roche Stories: Excursions to the GiP cooperation partner Roche in Mannheim
It is incredibly exciting, and also difficult for outsiders, to gain an insight into one of the world's largest and most innovative biotechnology companies - Roche. In the dual Bachelor's degree program "Health Economics in Practice" (GIP), students have the opportunity to complete one of their practical phases at Roche in Mannheim, one of the cooperation partners of the degree program, and thus gain important practical experience for their future professional life and make contacts.
Nina Münch, a student on the GiP degree program, who completed her practical semester at Roche in Mannheim and has been working there as a student trainee ever since, has now also given her fellow students an insight into her practical company. She organized an excursion for the students of her semester at the end of January, during which they were able to get to know and try out various state-of-the-art laboratory lines: Lab Automation at Roche is made up of pre-analytics (sample preparation), analytics (analysis of samples) and post-analytics (sample storage). The laboratory lines, with which blood samples can be analyzed, are used in laboratories worldwide, whereby regulation and sales models vary greatly from market to market.
Two different analytical systems were demonstrated as examples during the excursions. To start with, a team task impressively demonstrated the functionality of pre-analytics. The students had to carry out the individual work steps that the system performs themselves in groups using samples - water instead of blood, of course.
Roche offers these different systems as "stand-alone" or as complete automation for laboratories worldwide. In order to better understand the highly automated and complex automatisms and processes, the students were able to follow the path a sample takes at Roche Mannheim: from blood collection from patients to the laboratory result that the doctor receives. The systems automatically transfer all relevant data from the analysis of a sample to the connected IT systems. Of particular interest to health economists are the connection to the Hospital Information System (HIS) and the Lab Information System (LIS), the possibilities for integrating AI-based decision support tools and the effects of process automation on productivity. The range of tests to be carried out is very diverse. Hospitals, laboratories and medical practices can configure such a laboratory line according to their specific needs.
In addition to lab automation, GiP students at Roche also work in areas such as marketing/sales, market access and healthcare management.
