Roche sees problems from warehouse glitch in Britain ‘cleared out’ by weekend

ZURICH (Reuters) – Roche said any lingering affects of a logistics glitch in Britain should be “cleared out” by the weekend, after the Swiss drugmaker delivered 80 tonnes of diagnostics equipment to the National Health Service (NHS) to help solve the problem.

A robot broke down as Roche was moving to a new U.K. warehouse, blocking deliveries of diagnostic equipment for a range of tests including for magnesium levels. The problems did not impact the company’s COVID-19 tests, Roche said.

“There was a breakdown with one of the robots. This problem is fixed,” said Roche diagnostics head Thomas Schinecker on a call with analysts on Thursday. “We’re going to ship more than 80 tonnes of diagnostics products (from Germany) into the U.K. And the last of that will arrive in the U.K. at the end of this week and the weekend so that this should be completely cleared out.”

(Reporting by John Miller)