Company Announcements

In August, PerkinElmer exclusively licensed ultra-fast, low cross-talk solid state photomultiplier technology from Max Planck Innovation. The applications that the technology serves include PET, diagnostic scanning and analytical fluorescence.

Half-year revenue for Spectris’s Material Analysis unit increased 0.4% to £116.1 million ($172.0 million) to represent 31% of company revenues (see IBO 8/31/09). Excluding currency, sales declined 15%. Adjusted operating profit fell 16.1% to £11.5 million ($17.0 million). Sales to pharmaceutical, life science and academic markets were good, benefiting Malvern Instruments and Particle Measuring Systems. Demand from metals, minerals and mining, excluding China and India, was weak, as were semiconductor sales. PANalytical benefited from demand for food and environmental safety applications. Sales related to equipment for solar power applications increased.

Propel Labs will distribute Chata Biosystems’ products, which include HPLC mobile phases, table dissolution media and Chem+Mix instrumentation, in the Asia Pacific region.

MDS Analytical Technologies’ fiscal third-quarter sales ended July 31 fell 9.6% to $94 million, and were down 15% including currency effects (see IBO 9/15/09). Operating loss was $9 million, same as a year ago. Drug discovery and bio-research sales declined. MS end-user volume declined 17%, while MS revenue fell 15%.

In September, Horiba purchased land for the construction of a research facility on the Campus of École Polytechnique in Paris, France, as part of the French government’s Paris Saclay cluster initiative. A new 7,500 square-meter facility will be home to Horiba Europe Holding SAS, a €350 million ($512 million) business with 1,700 employees, and will serve as Horiba’s European research center.

YSI opened offices in Queensland, Australia, in September, which include a service center for YSI and SonTek water systems. Instrument sales will continue through selling partners. YSI Life Sciences products will continue to be sold and serviced by John Morris Scientific.

Gregory L. Summe, formerly chairman and CEO of PerkinElmer, joined The Carlyle Group in October as vice chairman of Global Buyout.

In September, Agilent announced the opening of the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences-Agilent Center for Systems Biology in Shanghai, China. The Institute houses multiple Agilent platforms for genomic, proteomics and metabolomics to conduct biomarker identification.

Fiscal 2009 sales ended July 31 for Smiths Detection declined 1.6%, 17% excluding currency, to £500.9 million ($795.1 million) to account for 19% of company sales. Excluding the ports and borders business, sales fell 5%. Operating profit was £62.6 million ($99.4 million), compared to £93 million ($186.0 million) a year ago (see IBO 9/30/09). Transportation and non-security sales were down, but sales to the military recorded their best year ever.