Company Announcements

In March, Flux, a Norwegian provider of upstream oil and gas equipment and solutions, has agreed to acquire Norway’s Analytic, a distributor of laboratory products for oil and gas testing.

In April, Waters announced plans to invest $215 million to expand its precision chemistry operation in Taunton, Massachusetts, with a new facility, which is expected to be operational by 2022. The current site is responsible for bulk synthesis of chromatographic media.

Connection Capital announced in April a £5.9 million ($8.3 million) investment in HEL. HEL designs and provides chemical reaction stations, bioreactors and calorimeters, among other products. HEL employs 51 people.

Thermo Fisher Scientific and the University of Pittsburgh have established a new Pharmacogenomics (PGx) Center of Excellence that combines expertise and technology in genomics, bioinformatics, implementation science, medication response phenotyping and education. The Center aims to discover and validate medication response predictors in patients, overcome clinical implementation barriers and demonstrate the value of pre-emptive PGx testing in routine clinical practice. The Center will feature Thermo Fisher’s portfolio of PGx testing solutions, including its PharmacoScan platform, to study pre-emptive panel-based PGx testing, and return results in at least 150,000 patients in western and central Pennsylvania.

In April, PerkinElmer announced a collaboration with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) to sponsor FIGO’s Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Committee through an annual unrestricted educational grant. The Committee will focus on prediction (ideally in the first trimester) and prevention of pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia, pre-term labor, hyperglycemia in pregnancy and fetal growth restriction as a consequence of common NCDs.

PerkinElmer announced the appointment of James M. Mock as senior vice president and CFO, effective May 1. Most recently, he served as vice president, Corporate Audit Staff, at GE.

Roper Technologies announced in April the appointment of Shellye L. Archambeau to its Board. She previously served as CEO of MetricStream, a global provider of governance, risk, compliance and quality management solutions across diverse industries.

In April, DKSH Business Unit Technology announced a multi–product line distribution agreement with Bruker AXS for South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Indonesia. It includes an alliance in South Korea for Bruker AXS’ XRF instruments.

GE announced in its first quarter conference call that GE Healthcare Life Sciences revenue grew 7% organically in the quarter and orders rose 9%, or 5% organically.

Eppendorf’s 2017 revenues grew 6.0%, 7.9% organically, to €690.3 million ($775.6 million) (see Bottom Line). Adjusted operating profit rose 3.6% increase to €172.7 million ($194.0 million). North and South American sales increased 7.6% in local currency to represent 38% of revenues, led by bioprocess sales. In Europe, revenue rose 8.9% in local currency to account for 36%, with double-digit growth for Eastern Europe and OEM accounts. Revenue in Asia/Pacific/Africa region grew 6.8% in local currencies, with strength in China partially offset by lower-than-expected sales in India, to represent 26%. For 2018, Eppendorf estimates mid-single digit revenue growth.

Bio-Techne named Kim Kelderman as President, Diagnostics and Genomics, effective April 30. Previously, he worked at Thermo Fisher Scientific, mostly recently managing the Platforms and Content of the Genetic Sciences Division.

Bruker appointed Dr. Falko Busse as president of Bruker BioSpin Group and an executive officer, effective May 1. He recently joined Bruker as Deputy BioSpin Group president. Prior to joining Bruker, he held leadership positions at Philips Healthcare.

The Illumina Accelerator completed its seventh funding cycle in April. The companies funded are: skin microbial therapeutics firm DermBiont; MedAnswers, a digital health company addressing healthier fertility outcomes; Mediphage Bioceuticals, a developer of phage-based therapeutic platforms; precision genomics firm TruGenomix Health, which focuses on treatments of post-traumatic stress disorder; and Unite Genomics, which enables and leverages machine learning and large-scale genomic analyses.

In April, Agilent Technologies opened a 11,000 ft² (1,022 m²) Global Solution Development Center in Singapore to develop integrated end-to-end workflows across a range of disciplines, including pharma, biopharma, lipidomics and food testing.