CTS History

CTS Tampa lab implemented the Ortho Clinical Diagnostics VITROS® testing platform to perform COVID-19 blood donor screening testing, thus enabling our healthcare partners to identify COVID-19 positive units for the manufacturing of convalescent plasma to treat patients.

CTS merges with the three Red Cross testing laboratories located in Charlotte, Portland and St. Louis, which all become CTS laboratories. CTS now operates six high volume laboratories located in Charlotte, Dallas, Phoenix, Portland, St. Louis and Tampa.

By the end of 2017, CTS has secured three source plasma partners and continues to seek additional partners in the plasma industry in order to continue to diversify CTS’s revenue stream.

In 2016, CTS tested more source plasma samples (4.9 million) than blood donor samples (4.5 million).

In April, CTS becomes the first blood donor testing organization in the US to implement Zika testing for a healthcare partner in Puerto Rico. By the end of November, CTS implements universal individual Zika testing on all blood donations in the US, due to an FDA requirement.

In October, due to demand from existing healthcare partners, CTS began testing blood donors for antibody to Babesia microti under an Investigational New Drug exemption as a release test.

In August CTS begins source plasma testing as a new line of business to one of the largest plasma fractionators in the industry.

CTS embraces a company-wide operational excellence initiative designed to change the culture to enhance operations and the service CTS provides to its healthcare partners. As a result of this initiative, CTS teams significantly improved performance in reporting test results on time and increased efficiency by over 10 percent.

In July, the six viral marker assay conversion at CTS Dallas, Phoenix and Tampa laboratories was achieved with minimal disruption and substantial cost saving to our healthcare partners.

CTS Tampa lab implements Dengue testing on behalf of a healthcare partner in an endemic area.

In August, the CTS Tampa lab transitioned to the same laboratory information systems (LIS) as the Dallas and Phoenix labs. The ability to test healthcare partner samples at any one of the three labs is a critical element in creating the reliability the CTS healthcare partners desire so they can provide the blood that saves patients’ lives.

In January, CTS is incorporated as a non-profit organization owned by Vitalant and OneBlood (formerly Florida Blood Services) with three laboratories located in Dallas, Phoenix and Tampa. CTS test 4.3 million blood donations or approximately 25 percent of the U.S. blood supply.