Company Announcements

Lockheed Martin formed in July its Healthcare Technology Alliance to develop and refine technologies to help guide decisions for care, diagnosis and treatment of disease while protecting critical health information. Founding members include Cisco, Cloudera, Illumina and Intel.

Illumina announced in August the second funding cycle of its Accelerator investments: PathoGn, which uses genomics and machine learning to build pathogen diagnostics and disease forecasting products for agricultural applications; Biome Makers, a microbiome company introducing advanced genomics in the wine sector; and Urology Diagnostics, which is developing urine sequencing diagnostics for screening and monitoring cancer.

In July, Mettler-Toledo appointed Connie Harvey, COO of the Commercial Healthcare Business Group at Xerox, to its Board.

Mettler-Toledo third quarter Lab sales rose 5% in local currency to $273.6 million, or 47% of revenues (see IBO 7/31/15), highlighted by AutoChem and pipette sales. Non–life science Lab sales in China were negatively affected by the economy. Total Lab sales are expected to grow mid-single digits for the year.

For the first half of the year, sales for Sigma-Aldrich slipped 1.2% to $1.37 billion but grew roughly 6.5% organically. Currency lowered sales growth by 9%, while acquisitions contributed 1%. Organic Research, Applied and SAFC Commercial sales grew 4%, 7% and 10% to account for 49%, 26% and 25% of revenues, respectively. SAFC growth was driven by demand for biopharmaceutical products and services. Overall, US sales advanced 9.8% to make up 42% of revenues. International sales declined 7.8% due to currency to account for 58%. Adjusted operating profit slipped 2.5% to $351 million due to currency and higher operating expenses.

Spectris disclosed in a July financial filing that in March, its Materials Analysis segment acquired its Taiwanese distributor, Sunway Scientific, for £2.2 million ($3.4 million).

Xylem Test revenue was flat in the third quarter.

Xylem Senior Vice President and CFO Michael T. Speetzen resigned effective July 30.

In August, Bruker named Dr. Hermann Requardt, former CEO of Siemens Healthcare Division, to its Board.

Thermo Fisher Scientific opened a Customer Experience Center in São Paulo, Brazil, in September.

Fiscal third quarter sales for Agilent Technologies Diagnostics and Genomics were flat at $167 million to account for 16% of revenues (see IBO 8/31/15). Currency-neutral sales grew 10%, including double-digit growth for molecular pathology in situ hybridization products. Currency-neutral sales in the Americas and Europe grew 5% and 19%, respectively. Excluding currency, Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) sales fell 4% and sales in Japan declined 8%. Sales growth in China was offset by declines in South-East Asia and India. Organic orders grew 8%. Segment adjusted operating profit improved 27.3% to $28 million.