Company Announcements

In February, Covidien announced that it plans to divest its Specialty Chemical division, which includes the Mallinckrodt Baker laboratory chemicals business. In fiscal 2007, Specialty Chemicals revenue totaled $422 million. The company expects to complete the sale by year end.

Ace Glass signed a multiyear agreement with VWR to become a core supplier for North America.

In February, A&D Company established an Indian subsidiary in Gurgaon with 15 employees.

Honeywell expanded its Honeywell Burdick & Jackson portfolio of lab chemicals in Europe from 200 solutions, salts and acids a year ago to more than 900 this year.

Fiscal 2007 sales for Gerresheimer AG’s Life Science Research Division rose 29.4% to €72.2 million ($98.9 million), but fell 3.1% on an organic basic, and adjusted EBIT increased 20.3% to €7.7 million ($10.5 million) (see IBO 2/29/08). Thermo Fisher Scientific’s life sciences business contributed (see IBO 3/31/07) €17.1 million ($23.4 million) over five months.

In February, Mike Neven, former CFO of Hi-Tec Sports Group, joined Nova Capital Management. He will initially focus on the Barloworld Scientific Laboratory Group (see IBO 10/31/07).

Airgas acquired gas distributor Northeast Gas Technologies earlier this year. Northeast Gas Technologies had $10 million in revenues in 2007.

Merck KGaA will invest €47 million ($71.5 million) in a new R&D center for its Chemicals business at its Darmstadt, Germany site. Construction will begin in June.

Walter Zywottek, a general partner and member of Merck KGaA’s Executive Board with responsibility for the Chemicals business sector, will retire in July and be succeeded by Dr. Bernd Reckmann. He is currently responsible for Production and Engineering, site management for Darmstadt and Gernsheim, and other functions.

Aviv Biomedical will sell and install its Fluorescence Detection System on fielded Beckman Coulter ProteomeLab XL-A, XL-I analytical ultracentrifuges.

Effective March 1, Thermo Fisher Scientific now directly sells its microbalances, digital recording balances, thermogravimetric analyzers and dynamic contact angle analyzers through its subsidiaries in Austria, Benelux, France, Germany and the UK.

In April, Fisher Scientific announced an alliance with Pennsylvania Bio to support the product and supply-chain service needs of Pennsylvania bioscience companies.

Kewaunee Scientific elected David S. Rhind to its Board in April. He is general counsel, North America, for Hudson Highland Group.

In April, Gilson opened the Gilson Service Center of Excellence, the only Pipetman manufacturer authorized service center in the US, in Middleton, Wisconsin.

In May, Pall and VWR International renewed their Master Distributor Supply Agreement.