Company Announcements

In November 2011, Shimadzu signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore’s Nanyang Polytechnic to set up a Center of Excellence in Food Safety & Laboratory Analytical Methods.

Agilent in November 2011 joined the sponsors of GreenCentre Canada, a national center of excellence for commercializing green chemistry discovery generated by academic researchers and industry.

In December 2011, the Agilent Technologies Foundation selected Russell S. Thomas, PhD, of the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences to receive an Agilent Thought Leader Award to support his work developing methods to predict drug-induced liver injury. The award consists of funding as well as instrumentation, including a 6460 triple quadrupole LC/MS and a microarray scanner.

Agilent named Gooi Soon Chai senior vice president of Order Fulfillment and Supply Chain in December 2011. He had been vice president and general manager of the Electronic Measurement Group‘s Electronic Instrument unit.

For the half year ending October 1, 2011, Halma’s Health and Analysis sales increased 16.7% to £121.1 million ($195.3 million) (see IBO 11/30/11). Revenues for Health Optics/Other, Fluid Technology, Water and Photonics grew 37%, 26%, 7% and 5% to make up 28%, 18%, 23% and 31% of the sector’s sales, respectively. Organic sales for Fluid Technology declined 10%.

Hitachi High-Technologies established in December 2011 the 1,900 m2 Tokyo Solution Laboratory in Kawasaki City, Japan, to provide demonstrations and training for its Scientific Instrument business. It replaces a demonstration facility for core products in Hitachinaka City.

Corning named Richard T. Clark, retired chairman and CEO of Merck, to its Board in December 2011.

Analytik Jena took a 23.5% share in newly established German company Moldiax. Moldiax will initially serve as an application service provider and, in the medium term, will provide molecular diagnostic kits.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is closing its lab furniture factory in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, which will affect 200 employees, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Sales/Orders of Note

In December 2011, Agilent announced a major sale to Virginia Tech’s Department of Chemistry for undergraduate teaching labs. Products sold were seven 5975C GC/MS systems, six 240FS atomic absorption spectrometers, an upgraded NMR console, a 6100 Series single quadrupole LC/MS, a Cary Eclipse fluorescence spectrophotometer and a Cary 100 UV/Vis spectrophotometer.

Agilent announced in December 2011 a major purchase by Yale University to support six research institutes. The sale included three NMR systems, a 6120 single quadrupole LC/MS and 6490 triple quadrupole LC/MS, a 7890A GC/MS, a BioCel 900 automation system, and 660 FTIR and 300 UV-Vis spectroscopy systems.