Company Announcements

Brooks Automation acquired Pacific Bio-Material Management (PBMMI) in July for $33 million. PBMMI provides services for biological sample storage and cold chain logistics. PBMMI posted revenues of $12 million for the last 12 months.

In July, Thermo Fisher Scientific announced that Linkage Biosciences has joined its Transplant Diagnostics business. Linkage supplies LinkSēq real-time PCR genotyping kits.

In its second quarter SEC financial filing, Thermo Fisher Scientific disclosed that it purchased Finesse Solutions for $221 million, net of cash acquired (see IBO 2/15/17). Finesse Solutions recorded 2016 revenues of $50 million. It also reported that it acquired Core Informatics, which has annual revenues of $10 million, for $94 million (see IBO 3/15/17).

In July, Agilent Technologies named MIT’s Ram Sasisekharan, PhD, as a recipient of its Agilent Thought Leader Award in recognition of his contributions in the field of biologics characterization. He work aims to shorten the development time between product “design” to the clinic.

Waters announced in its second quarter conference call that it has integrated its Waters-branded product groups, including LC, MS, chemistries and informatics, into one R&D group, led by Ian King, senior vice president of Instrument Technology.

Teledyne Technologies’ second quarter Environmental sales grew 13.6%, led by sales of air monitoring instruments and the acquisition of Hanson Research (see IBO 12/15/16).

Illumina announced in July a sixth cycle of start-ups funded by the Illumina Accelerator (see IBO 4/30/14). The companies are: Checkerspot, a developer of high-performance materials; biotherapeutics firm Chimera Bioengineering, which is building RNA-based gene regulatory systems to control engineered cell therapies; digital health company Encompass Bioscience; Matra Bio, which is creating an exosome intelligence platform for drug discovery; and microbiome therapeutics firm Solarea Bio, which is developing a platform for probiotic treatments derived from natural sources. Since 2014, the Accelerator has invested in 18 start-ups.

PerkinElmer reported in its second quarter SEC financial filing that it purchased Tulip Diagnostics (see IBO 1/15/17) for $127.3 million.

Bruker acquired in August technology for a field portable, electrochemical chip–based detection instrument, the portable Bio-Detection integrated (pBDi), and associated consumables kits for onsite, fast identification of selected bacteria, viruses and toxins. The electrochemical immunoassay can detect and identify up to 6 biothreats per assay chip, typically within 20 minutes and without prior culturing.

In August, Hitachi High-Technologies announced it is developing the cloud-based ExTOPE integrated Internet of Things (IoT) portal for its analytical instrumentation. The portal will collect, store and manage measurement data and equipment operation data from Hitachi systems. The company plans to also provide applications.

Malvern PANalytical announced in August a collaboration with IoT specialist TetraScience to deploy IoT-enabled capabilities and connectivity for its instruments, with the objective of providing access to customized dashboards, data collection and analytics, and system scheduling and monitoring. The first phase will focus on the Empyrean XRD spectrometer and the Mastersizer 3000 laser diffraction system. The connections will be vendor agnostic.

Second quarter revenues for Harvard Bioscience declined 3.5% to $25.2 million (see IBO 7/31/17). Organic sales grew 1%, as currency effects reduced sales growth by 2.1% and the divestment of AHN (see IBO 10/31/16) cut growth by 1.4%. Adjusted operating profit rose 35.1% to $1.7 million.

Effective September 1, Merck KGaA Life Science CEO Udit Batra assumed responsibilities for Merck KGaA’s business technology activities.

In August, Eppendorf reported first-half sales grew 7.3%, 6.6% when adjusted for currency, to €327.9 million ($354.5 million) (see IBO 8/15/17). EBIT margin rose three-tenths of a percentage point to 19.3%.

Eppendorf announced in September the appointment of Eva van Pelt to its Management Board, effective October 1. She will assume responsibilities for Commercial Organization (sales, marketing and service). She previously served as managing director for the EMEA region at Leica Microsystems.

In an August SEC filing, Becton, Dickinson announced the retirement of Ellen R. Strahlman, executive vice present, Research and Development, and chief medical officer, effective December 31

In August, Oxford Instruments announced plans to increase the number of personnel at its R&D facility at the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan, and strengthen the organizations’ cooperative relationship. The cooperation agreement now includes MEMS, micro-LED, silicon photonics, and other semiconductor optoelectronic components and equipment technology. The organizations have worked together since 2006.

Bruker announced in its second quarter SEC filing that in May the Korean Public Prosecutor’s Office declined pursue criminal proceedings against the company related to allegations of improper bidding for x-ray systems in 2010 and 2012 (see IBO 2/28/17). From December 2016 to June 2017, several government entities imposed suspensions on the company. South Korea accounted for less than 1% of Bruker’s 2016 revenues.

In August, Xylem named Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn to its Board, bringing the total number of directors to 10. She currently serves as vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Technical Services.

PerkinElmer India opened a Centre of Excellence at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, in August.  The facility houses PerkinElmer systems for high-throughput analyses in life science. The company currently has more than 10,000 customers and over 450 employees in India.

In August, VWR opened a regional distribution center in Missouri City, Texas.

Scientific product and technology firm Scientific Digital Imaging acquired Applied Thermal Control (ATC), a provider of cooling systems for scientific instrumentation, in August for £686,000 ($879,487) and a total consideration up to £1.2 million ($1.5 million). ATC recorded 2016 revenues of £1.2 million ($1.6 million).

In August, MilliporeSigma announced the opening of its first global Food Safety Studio in Bellevue, Washington. The Studio is designed for manufacturers of all types of food to collaborate with MilliporeSigma on developing products for the rapid detection of foodborne pathogens.

In September, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced that MilliporeSigma plans to expand its facility in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, by 80,000 ft² (24,384 m²). The expansion will consolidate the company’s Flavors & Fragrances and Stains & Dyes operations. The expansion is expected to create 175 jobs over three years. Wisconsin is home to four of the company’s manufacturing sites and a distribution center.

The IrvineTimes reported in September that Merck KGaA is undertaking a £1.3 million ($1.7 million) expansion of it Irvine facility in Scotland. The facility produces liquid and powder cell culture media. The expansion will add capacity for production of an addition two million liters of media.

Effective September 1, Elementar Founder Dr. Hans-Peter Sieper stepped down as president of the company but now serves on the supervisory board. His son, Albrecht Sieper, replaced him.

In September, Sartorius announced the opening of a new €42 million ($46 million), 270,000 ft² (25,000 m²) manufacturing facility at its campus in Göettingen, Germany. The new building combines manufacturing that was formerly located at different sites.