Cannabis testing in the US has made progress on multiple fronts but still has a long way to go, resulting in new opportunities for lab product and instrumentation companies. Testing demand is growing as more states legalize recreational use, and institute testing and lab requirements. But the fragmented market and unique business environment creates challenges […]

Atomic Spectroscopy HORIBA updated its XRF-based sulfur-in-oil analyzer with the SLFA-6800, available in a single-sample arrangement or with an eight-position carousel. One improvement is the removal of lead from the circuit board. The system will begin shipping in May priced at about $38,000. JEOL’s benchtop JSX-1000S ElementEye for ED-XRF measurements was introduced late last year. […]

On-line process GC (PGC) systems are permanently installed instruments used to analyze complex mixtures in real time. Like all GC systems, including laboratory and portable systems, a PGC instrument is comprised of three functional components: a sample-handling system, a chromatograph oven and controller electronics. One of the largest application areas for PGC systems is the […]

Atomic Spectroscopy PerkinElmer added to its PinAAcle series of atomic-absorption spectrometers. The 500 is a corrosion-resistant, flame-only system designed primarily for environmental applications that require robust performance, such as the mining and petrochemical industries. The system will begin shipping in June at a price in the low $20,000 range. Bruker introduced the S2 Puma as […]

Company Announcements Bruker announced in November 2014 that Techcomp will continue to manufacture the SCION GC and GC single-quadrupole MS product lines it acquired from Bruker (see IBO 10/15/14) in California. Bruker will continue to provide service and support for the product lines. Techcomp has a deferred option to acquire the service business in the […]

Company Announcements Bruker announced on its third quarter 2014 conference call that its divestiture of certain GC and GC/MS assets (see IBO 10/15/14) and its ICP-MS (see IBO 8/15/14) business generated approximately $28 million in proceeds. As part of the CAM restructuring, Bruker is relocating GC triple-quadrupole MS manufacturing from Fremont, California, to Bremen, Germany, […]

Mass spectrometry (MS) enjoyed a very good 2014 as revenues exceeded 7%, a nice improvement from 2013, led by LC/MS systems, both quadrupole and time-of-flight (TOF) MS instruments. On the other hand, demand for portable, in-field and magnetic-sector MS instruments was anemic, growing less than 3%. This year, the total MS market is expected to […]

The chromatography market increased to nearly $8.17 billion in 2014 on 3.9% growth. This segment’s forecast excludes capillary electrophoresis, which has been moved to the life science segment (see page 2). Also, clinical HPLC has been added as a subsegment. Aftermarket and service demand grew 4.5% and 5.1%, respectively, last year, while demand for initial […]

Merck KGaA and Sigma-Aldrich Consolidation continued in the lab-products market, as less than a year after Thermo Fisher Scientific’s purchase of Life Technologies (see IBO 2/15/14), Merck KGaA announced a $17 billion deal to buy Sigma-Aldrich (see IBO 9/30/14). The deal highlights the importance of scale and diversification and transforms Merck/EMD Millipore into a major […]

A More Focused Approach As economic headwinds in China, industrial and selected government markets continued in 2014, several analytical-instrument and lab-product companies took steps to focus on a narrower set of businesses and product lines, in some cases, divesting assets and, in other cases, consolidating their positions. Among the year’s most prominent product-line exits were […]