Company Announcements

Biotage AG elected Anders Walldov and Eva-Lotta Kraft to its Board in March, replacing Bengt Samuelsson and Mathias Uhlén.

India’s Hindu Business Line reported in April that Agilent opened a facility in Haryana. The facility has 1,200 employees and houses back-office and R&D operations.

In April, Thermo Fisher Scientific opened its Food Safety Response Center in Dreieich, Germany, which provides rapid responses to unknown food-safety threats involving chemical contaminants.

Maryland announced in April that QIAGEN NV will spend $50 million to expand its North American headquarters in Germantown. The expansion will add 90 jobs by 2015 and 117,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space, bringing the total size to 347,000 square feet.

First-quarter revenue for Roche Diagnostics Applied Science increased 19% to CHF 226 million ($215 million), or 9% of the Diagnostics Division’s sales. Microarray sales grew 40%, Industrial revenue rose 31% and Sequencing revenue fell 15%. QPCR and Nucleic Acid Purification sales increased 40%, with good growth in China. In local currency, sales to North America and Rest of World rose 8% and 62% to 35% and 25% of revenue, respectively. Sales to Europe, the Middle East and Africa increased 11% to 41% of revenue.

In April, IDEX acquired Seals Ltd. for £35 million ($54 million) in cash. Seals’ Perlast division provides seals and advanced sealing solutions for analytical instrumentation. Seals has annual revenues of £21 million ($32 million).

Hitachi High-Technologies’ Life Science sales for the year ended March 31 declined 2.1% to ¥95,500 million ($1,028 million) (see IBO 5/15/10). For fiscal 2010 (ending March 2011), the company forecasts Science & Medical Systems sales (combining the former Life Sciences division with the Electron Microscopy and other products lines) to fall 4.9% to ¥117,000 million ($1,260 million) due to the absence of the Japanese supplemental budget.

Product Introductions

GE Healthcare launched Laboratory Asset Management Assessment, a consultative service.

Sales/Orders of Note

Thermo Fisher Scientific and Eli Lilly and Company announced in March a new five-year materials supply chain agreement, which expands their relationship to include Fisher Clinical Services’ assumption of responsibility for Lilly’s in-house clinical-trial materials manufacturing, packaging and labeling operations on site at the Lilly Technology Center — North in Indianapolis, Indiana.

In March, Life Technologies completed the installation of DNA analysis software, genetic analyzers and DNA extraction instrumentation for Japan’s National Police Agency and its 47 prefectural forensic science labs. The installation represented a $30 million investment.