Happy at home, sweet home

Building ownership relieves Southwest Labs’ growing pains

The owners of an Albuquerque toxicology reference laboratory, which is growing at a rapid clip, have purchased an office building in the North I-25 area as the company’s new corporate headquarters.

A spokesman for Southwest Labs, which provides patient prescription monitoring services, said buying the building six months ago takes away the burden of having to constantly remodel leased facilities to provide enough office space for its growing workforce as well as housing test equipment.

“We kept having to knock walls down,” said John Lahoff, marketing director for the business, which acquired the 11,000-squarefoot building at 4261 Balloon Park NE for an undisclosed price. Employees moved in a month ago, Lahoff said.

In addition to the management team, the 55-person workforce includes technicians to run the equipment and perform the tests. The company also employs sales representatives, sample collectors and drivers.

Lahoff said the company sunk $350,000 into top-tobottom tenant improvements at the building, which was formerly a charter school. Southwest Labs staffers had to carefully time the movement of highly sophisticated instrumentation — liquid mass spectrometers — which are used for patient prescription monitoring. “You just can’t unplug” the equipment and haul it across town, he said of the very precise installation.

In order to swing the purchase of its own real estate, the company’s principals relied on private investors and “its own cash flow” from payers, primarily insurance companies, Lahoff said.

Physicians and hospitals send their patients to Southwest Labs to do drug testing in order to confirm that patients are actually taking their medications. Southwest Labs is competing with large out-ofstate labs by providing a fast, local alternative for patients and doctors, Lahoff said.

JIM THOMPSON/JOURNAL Southwest Labs, which provides patient prescription monitoring services, has purchased an office building in the North I-25 area which serves as its corporate headquarters, contains office space for its growing workforce, and houses test equipment.

Lab Supervisor Taran Kaur works with a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry system at the Southwest Labs new headquarters in the North I-25 area. The building, a former charter school, received top-to-bottom tenant upgrades.