Labcorp (Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings) runs one of the largest clinical-lab and drug-development operations in the world, with thousands of patient service centers, dozens of testing labs, and a biopharma arm that supports clinical trials. That footprint means it buys a lot, and not just reagents and lab instruments. The hard part for most diverse business owners is that Labcorp does not run a single public "sell to us" button. The doorway that actually exists is a supplier diversity intake portal, and knowing what it does (and does not do) saves you weeks of guessing.
What Labcorp actually buysA company this size spends across two very different categories. The first is direct spend: lab equipment, reagents, consumables, specimen-collection supplies, and the logistics that move samples between collection sites and testing labs. That category is heavily qualified, regulated, and often locked into long-term contracts with incumbents.
The second category is where most newer suppliers have a realistic shot: indirect and professional spend. Think facilities and janitorial services, IT and software, staffing, marketing and print, courier and last-mile transport, office supplies, construction and build-out for new patient service centers, and professional services like legal, accounting, and consulting. Indirect categories turn over more often and have more room for new vendors, so be honest about which bucket your business fits before you spend energy chasing a category that rarely opens.
How registration actually worksLabcorp routes its diverse-supplier interest through a portal built on the SupplierOne platform, hosted at labcorpsupplierdiversity.supplierone.co. SupplierOne is a third-party diverse-supplier registry that several large corporations use to collect and screen supplier profiles. Kraft Heinz runs the same kind of intake on its own SupplierOne instance, so the workflow will feel familiar if you have registered with another Fortune 500 program.
Here is the part founders get wrong: registering is not the same as winning work. A SupplierOne profile puts you into a searchable database that Labcorp's sourcing and category managers query when they have a need. It is a registry, not a request for quote. You are building a profile that a buyer might find later, not submitting a bid. Treat it accordingly.
When you register, have these ready:
- Legal business name, DUNS or UEI, and a clear one-line description of what you sell
- Your NAICS codes and the commodity or service categories you serve
- Diversity certification numbers and the issuing body
- A short capability statement and any past performance with comparable buyers
If you do not have a polished capability statement yet, build one before you register. A vague profile gets skipped. Our capability statement builder and the broader CertifyAll tooling help you compile the business details and documents once, so you are not re-keying the same information into every corporate portal.
The diversity-certification angleA SupplierOne diversity intake exists to find certified diverse businesses, which means a self-declared "minority-owned" checkbox will not carry you far. The certifications corporate procurement teams actually recognize are third-party ones:
- NMSDC MBE (National Minority Supplier Development Council) for minority-owned businesses. This is the standard for Fortune 500 corporate procurement, and it is the one to prioritize if you qualify. We walk through the process in our NMSDC certification guide.
- WBENC WBE for women-owned businesses
- NGLCC LGBTBE for LGBTQ+-owned businesses
- Disability:IN DOBE for disability-owned businesses, and NaVOBA / SDVOSB for veteran- and service-disabled-veteran-owned businesses
Get certified before you register, not after. The certification is what turns a generic profile into a record a supplier diversity manager can report against, and it is the single highest-leverage thing you can do to get noticed. If you are unsure which certification fits your ownership, sort that out first, because it determines which corporate doors open.
Note: Labcorp's public materials confirm the portal and a corporate diversity-and-inclusion presence, but they do not publish a definitive list of which certifications its program names or whether intake is open versus invitation-only. Register, and treat the recognized national certifications above as the safe baseline.
How to get noticed (or invited)A profile sitting in a database does nothing on its own. The suppliers who get pulled into sourcing events tend to do three things.
First, they map to a real category and a real spend. Generic "we do everything" profiles lose to specific ones. Pick the two or three NAICS categories where you genuinely compete and lead with them.
Second, they find the human. Corporate supplier diversity teams attend NMSDC and WBENC regional events, industry trade shows, and matchmaker sessions. A five-minute conversation at one of those events does more than a hundred cold profiles. If Labcorp's team is present at an NMSDC affiliate event in your region, that is your shortest path to a name.
Third, they show up where Labcorp already buys. Which brings us to the route most suppliers overlook.
The Tier-2 side doorIf Labcorp's direct procurement looks closed, the Tier-2 program is often the faster way in. Tier-2 (sometimes called second-tier) spend is the diverse spend that Labcorp's existing prime suppliers report within their own supply chains. When a large prime contractor delivers facilities, staffing, IT, or logistics to Labcorp, that prime is frequently asked to track and grow its own use of diverse subcontractors. Becoming a subcontractor to one of those primes counts toward Labcorp's reported diverse spend without your needing a direct contract.
This matters because the bar is lower and the relationship is warmer. A prime that already has the Labcorp account has a built-in incentive to bring in certified diverse subs, and you are selling to a buyer who already trusts the prime. Identify who holds Labcorp's facilities, staffing, or logistics contracts in your region, and pitch them as a subcontractor. Many corporate diversity wins start here, not at the front door.
Where to start this weekIf you are not certified, start there, because nothing else works without it. If you are certified, register your profile on the SupplierOne intake, then build the relationships (events, primes, category managers) that turn a database record into a phone call.
Labcorp is one of hundreds of corporate programs worth targeting, and the registration mechanics rhyme across most of them. If you want to line up several opportunities at once rather than chasing one logo, browse the corporate program directory to see which programs match your certifications and categories, and work them in parallel.
