Company Announcements

Half-year revenue for Spectris’ Materials Analysis (MA) segment rose 13.6%, with a 3% increase in organic sales, to £199.5 million ($249.4 million), or 28% of company sales, and adjusted operating profit declined 2.4% to £20.5 million ($25.6 million). Acquisitions contributed 0.5% to segment growth. Organic sales declined in North America, but European sales showed a small increase and strong growth in Asia. Pharmaceutical sales were strong, as sales to the metals, minerals and mining sectors grew except in North America. Academic research sales also declined. In contrast, electronics, semiconductor and telecom sales rose. Aftermarket sales accounted for 38% of MA sales.

Eva van Pelt, a member of Eppendorf’s Management Board, assumed responsibility for the area of Commercial Organization, effective October 1.

In October, Eppendorf India announced the expansion of a training facility in Ambattur, Chennai.

In October, Tecan nominated Dr. Lukas Braunschweiler, CEO of Sonova Holding, and Dr. Daniel R. Marshak, formerly senior vice president and CSO at PerkinElmer, to join its Board. Rolf Classon will stand down from the Board in April 2018. Dr. Braunschweiler has been proposed to be chairman.

Mars launched in October an aflatoxin food safety initiative to crowdsource solutions for addressing aflatoxin, a foodborne toxin, using the gamers’ website fold.it. The initiative builds upon a collaboration between Thermo Fisher Scientific, the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa, the University of California, Davis, the University of Washington, Northeastern University and Mars. The top website designs will be synthesized using synthetic biology techniques and materials donated by Thermo Fisher.

In November, Thermo Fisher Scientific established a strategic partnership with Cellular Biomedicine Group (CBMG) to build a joint Cell Therapy Technology Innovation and Application Center at CBMG’s Shanghai Zhangjiang GMP facility. The partnership focuses on the research and development of an automated cell therapy manufacturing system.

In October, Illumina announced that it has raised $230 million for Illumina Ventures, its first fund. The fund was launched in 2016 (see IBO 5/31/16) with an initial investment of $100 million. Focused exclusively on genomics and precision medicine, the fund has invested in seven companies.

Illumina announced in October the appointment of Marc Stapley as executive vice president of Strategy and Corporate Development. He formerly served as chief administrative officer.

In November, Illumina announced that Gary S. Guthart, PhD, will join its Board, effective December 1, expanding the Board from 9 to 10 members. He is president and CEO of Intuitive Surgical, a provider of robotic solutions for minimally invasive surgery.

VWR announced in October a collaboration with Scientist.com, an online marketplace for research services, under which US customers can purchase custom VWR products from the website.

In October, BioSurplus, a provider of preowned lab equipment, announced a collaboration with BanBio, an equipment reseller and repair company based in Maryland.

Anton Paar announced in October that it plans to increase revenues 20% next year, resulting from 5% increase from product line acquisitions, new hires and a regionalized strategy. The company plans to open local offices in Los Angeles, California, and Houston, Texas, to manage the Western and Southern regions, respectively.

In October, Anton Paar opened a training laboratory at VLB, the Research and Teaching Institute for Brewing in Berlin, Germany. Anton Paar and VLB have worked together for years.

In October, Waters announced that Chairman Douglas A. Berthiaume will retire from the Board effective December 31. President and CEO Christopher J. O’Connell will replace him as chairman.

On GE’s third quarter conference call, the company reported Life Sciences sales grew 10%. Life Sciences orders grew 14%, led by a 17% increase in bioprocess orders.

In October, Harvard Bioscience named Katherine Eade, director of M&A Law and Transactions at Corning, and Thomas Loewald, president of the Extrusion and Laminations Division of ProAmpac, to its Board.

ZAGENO, an online platform for lab product purchases. announced in October the closing of a $8 million Series A investment led by Capnamic Ventures. Currently, over 250 researchers use the site.

In October, Bio-Techne elected Dr. Alpna Seth and Dr. Joe Keegan to its Board. Mr. Seth serves as COO of Vir Biotechnology. Dr. Keegan is an advisor to and director for several life science tools companies, and was most recently president and CEO of ForteBio. Board member Dr. Karen Holbrook will retire in December.

PerkinElmer elected Pascale Witz, MBA, MSc to its Board in October. Most recently, she served as executive vice president, Global Diabetes and Cardiovascular for Sanofi.

Judges Scientific named Mark Lavelle as director and COO, effective November 15. He replace David Barnbrook. Mr. Lavelle has 15-years experience with Halma.

In November, Bruker announced the merger of its Swedish subsidiaries to form Bruker Nordic.

In November, HORIBA announced several promotions, effective January 1, 2018. Masayuk Adachi was named president and COO. He assumes the position of president from Atshushi Horiba, who retains his positions as Chairman and CEO. Juichi Saito, currently executively vice president, added the position of Group COO.

On its third quarter conference call, Teledyne Technologies reported that Environmental sales rose 21.8% to $77.7 million, with double digit organic growth, largely due to sales of industrial air monitoring instruments, lab and life science instruments related to the acquisitions of Hanson Research (see IBO 12/15/16) and SSI (see IBO 7/15/17).

In the third quarter, Metttler-Toledo Lab sales rose 9% in local currencies to total 48% of sales, or $335.4 million, with strength in China. Acquisitions contributed 1% to Lab sales growth.

QIAGEN announced in November the appointment of Mark Gladwell, who replaces senior vice president, Global Operations. Most recently, he served as senior vice president, Global Operations at Alere. Also announced was the departure of Dr. Laura Furmanski as senior vice president of the Bioinformatics Business Area. A replacement has yet to be named.

Agilent Technologies announced the Professor Jiandong Jiang received an Agilent Thought Leader Award in support of his studies on cancer stem cells differentiation induced by natural products. He is director of the Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. He uses Agilent MS technologies, Seahorse XF technology, and MassHunter and VistaFlux software.

Product Introduction

In October, Beekr launched an open online marketplace for science-related products. It is free for sellers to join.

QIAGEN launched in October its Custom Solutions business, which will offer custom and OEM sample technologies, oligo and enzyme product options for PCR, qPCR and NGS product development, and a broad range of other platform technologies.

Sales/Orders of Note

In November, QIAGEN announced the placement of its 2,000th QIAsymphony system with molecular testing services firm Caris Life Sciences.