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Todd Baldanzi, Senior Vice PresidentWalk into a pathology lab today and you will find highly skilled professionals managing thousands of patient samples through processes that remain surprisingly manual and customized. While every sample carries critical information for diagnosis, the journey from tissue collection to final interpretation depends on a series of precise steps — from preparation and identification to tracking and quality control.
Across laboratories, these workflows have evolved differently over time, shaped by local practices, manual processes, and individual expertise. Managing varied tissue types, maintaining accurate identification, and ensuring consistency across each stage remain ongoing challenges.
For StatLab, solving this fragmentation is the foundation of its mission: helping laboratories create a more connected, reliable path from specimen collection to diagnosis. Founded in North Texas in 1976, it has grown from a small distribution business into an integrated global manufacturer focused on building a connected pathology workflow.
“We build an ecosystem that helps laboratories work better and deliver quicker, more accurate diagnoses for patients who are waiting for their results,” says Todd Baldanzi, Senior Vice President.
One connected pathology workflow
As pathology moves toward digital diagnosis and AI-supported analysis, the quality of the sample entering the system becomes increasingly important. StatLab focuses on products used in the pre-analytical stage — the collection, preparation, and identification steps that lay the foundation for accurate diagnosis.
Its portfolio spans sample collection and fixation, prefilled containers, slides, cassettes, stains, reagents, embedding solutions, printers, tissue processors, microtomes, and labeling and tracking technologies. StatLab makes products across eight facilities in the U.S. and Europe, and manufactures about 70 percent of what it sells. Through nine acquisitions over the past five years, the company has assembled capabilities that previously existed across separate suppliers. Since 2021, it has also invested more than $35 million in manufacturing, supporting an in-region, for-region approach that places production as close to the final destination as possible.
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We build an ecosystem that helps laboratories work better and deliver quicker, more accurate diagnoses for patients who are waiting for their results.
This breadth matters because equipment and consumables must perform as a system. StatLab develops and manufactures both, so it can refine how products work together. A printer’s output, for example, depends on the surface of the cassette or slide. Poor print quality can make a barcode hard to read and compromise sample identification. By controlling multiple parts of the specimen identification process, StatLab helps laboratories create a more reliable sample traceability for patients.
Technology also addresses the practical variation between laboratories. Tissue samples differ in size and type, which makes full automation difficult. StatLab focuses on products that reduce manual errors, support more consistent preparation, and make routine tasks easier for histologists, histotechnologists, and pathologists. Its labeling solutions help preserve sample identity from one stage to the next, connecting laboratory efficiency with patient safety.
StatLab’s customer model reflects the different ways labs buy. It has long served local and regional facilities through direct relationships. Large hospital systems often purchase through national distributors, so the company built partnerships with those distributors, placed branded and private-label products in their catalogues, and worked with their teams to reach hospital labs.
These relationships also allow StatLab to work closely with laboratories to address workflow challenges beyond simply supplying products. For example, a Midwest hospital network was facing a tissue-wash problem, where tissues detached from slides during preparation, affecting diagnostic review. StatLab proposed its KT®5+ slide, designed with a proprietary coating to improve tissue adhesion and reduce background staining. The hospital tested it against its existing slides and then switched its entire lab to the StatLab product.
The case highlights how even a low-cost consumable can have a significant impact, with a 10 to 50-cent slide potentially affecting processes worth $80 to $100 when preparation fails. The example also demonstrates how simple components can influence the reliability of the final diagnostic material. Because so much rides on a slide, StatLab invested in opening a new slide manufacturing factory in Arlington, Texas, which will pair with its plant in Braunschweig, Germany, to provide dual manufacturing and give US labs a dependable, locally produced supply of high-quality KT slides.
As pathology moves toward digital diagnosis and AI-supported analysis, these foundational steps are becoming increasingly important. Recognized as Top Clinical Consumables and Equipment Manufacturer 2026, StatLab believes the future of diagnosis will require stronger foundations at the beginning of the specimen journey. By supporting laboratories with high-quality consumables, equipment, and supply continuity, StatLab helps ensure that the next generation of diagnostic advances is built on confidence, consistency, and clinical precision.
Pre-Analytical Pathology Procurement Beyond Unit Price
Pathology laboratories can absorb a surprising amount of risk from products that look routine on a procurement sheet. A slide, cassette, reagent or printer may carry a low unit cost, yet poor compatibility can disrupt sample identification or staining quality after significant labor has already been invested. Problems may also emerge in tissue preparation or downstream reading. That makes product consistency and workflow compatibility central to evaluating a clinical consumables and equipment manufacturer.
Compatibility deserves close attention because many pre-analytical workflows combine equipment and consumables sourced from different manufacturers. Printers must produce readable labels on the specific slides or cassettes used in the lab, while reagents and processing equipment need to perform consistently across repeated runs. A mismatch may not stop the workflow immediately. It can surface later as weak barcode readability or inconsistent preparation. Buyers should examine whether a manufacturer develops related products together and validates how they interact. Clear performance boundaries and documented use conditions provide additional assurance when laboratories standardize purchasing.
Product breadth can reduce procurement complexity, but only when the portfolio is coherent. Laboratories often need collection and fixation products alongside slides, cassettes, stains, reagents and specialized equipment. A broad catalog is less useful if each item functions as an isolated purchase. More relevant is whether the manufacturer can support connected parts of the pre-analytical process without forcing the lab to reconcile multiple technical standards or service relationships. That becomes especially important for health systems standardizing workflows across several sites.
“StatLab develops both equipment and associated consumables in-house, allowing products such as printers with slides or cassettes to be engineered for compatibility rather than treated as unrelated purchases.”
Specimen identification introduces another layer of risk. Labeling tools and printers must preserve readable information as tissue moves through preparation before diagnosis. Manual handling remains common in anatomical pathology, while specimen variation limits how far laboratories can automate. Equipment that reduces repetitive handling or helps standardize routine steps can improve consistency without demanding a complete workflow redesign. Evaluation should cover traceability and printer-media compatibility, along with integration into existing laboratory processes and the amount of manual intervention still required.
Availability can determine whether a technically suitable product is usable across an organization. Smaller laboratories may buy directly while hospital systems often procure through national distributors under prime vendor contracts. Manufacturers able to support different purchasing routes can reduce friction when procurement arrangements vary between sites. Procurement teams also need to distinguish between nominal product availability and dependable replenishment when daily specimen volumes leave little tolerance for substitutions or delayed deliveries during routine laboratory work cycles. Supply continuity also warrants examination across frequently used consumables and equipment-dependent products. Service access becomes especially relevant when a malfunctioning device or incompatible consumable can interrupt preparation already underway.
StatLab manufactures consumables and equipment across much of the pre-analytical anatomical pathology workflow, including slides, cassettes, reagents, printers, tissue processors and microtomes. The company develops equipment and associated consumables in-house, allowing products such as printers with slides or cassettes to be engineered for compatibility rather than treated as unrelated purchases. Its portfolio also includes labeling and tracking tools intended to support specimen identification through the workflow. StatLab sells directly and through distribution partners, giving laboratories access through different procurement routes. Buyers seeking to consolidate pre-analytical purchasing, improve coordination between equipment and consumables, and meet sample-tracking requirements have the clearest reason to assess StatLab.
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