Company Announcements

Hudson Control Group named Wagner Medical and Pharmaceutical its new sales representative for continental Europe in November 2011.

In November 2011, Tecan appointed Martin Brusdeilins as head of its Development & Operations Division. He also retained his current position as head of the Science & Technology unit. He replaces Jürg Dübendorfer, who will leave the company by May.

For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, revenues for Brooks Automation Life Science Systems were $10.6 million (see IBO 1/15/12), including $7.7 million in product revenue from systems and consumables. The segment eliminated 13 employees during the year.

In December 2011, Scienion established a US subsidiary in Princeton, New Jersey. The company also plans to establish a contract manufacturing unit in North America.

Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD) and Sirius Analytical Instruments partnered in December 2011 to allow the set-up of a “Sample Model,” with parameters predicted by ACD software and delivery to the Sirius T3 instrument interface.

CyBio’s sales for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, grew 2.6% to €11.7 million ($16.3 million) (see IBO 12/31/11). Instruments, consumables, service and automation project revenues rose 5.0%, 3.4%, 0% and 0% to account for 36%, 26%, 23% and 15% of sales, respectively.

Product Introductions

For its Omega microplate readers, BMG Labtech launched the Atmospheric Control Unit, which can regulate oxygen and carbon dioxide levels independently.

Agilent introduced in October the 709-DS Dissolution Apparatus, which features a bath-free design.

Freeslate launched the Biologic Formulation Workflow for vaccine and protein formulation development, featuring its Core Module 3 automation platform. The system automates and integrates sample preparation, sample stressing and formulation analysis.

Molecular Devices released the SoftMax Pro 6 Microplate Data and Analysis Software, featuring a new user interface, and 3-D graphing and plate-cloning analysis.

In November 2011, Molecular Devices launched the MicroMax Low Volume Microplate for measuring up to 64 samples per plate on its SpectraMax microplate readers using either 2 µL or 4 µL samples.

BioDot released the BioJet Ultra Piezo System, a noncontact liquid handling and spotting system that allows dispensing from 50 pL to 1 nL in a single drop or multidrop dispensing of up to 1 µL.

In January, Hamilton Storage Technologies launched the BiOS third-generation automation system for ultra-low temperature storage of sensitive biological samples. It has a capacity of 250,000 to 10 million sample tubes at temperatures down to -85°C.