Company Announcements

Dionex acquired Caliper Life Sciences’ AutoTrace Solid Phase Extraction Workstation product line for in November 2008 for $5 million. AutoTrace had 2007 sales of $3.1 million.

Asemblon, a provider of self-assembled monolayer chemistries, signed an international distribution agreement with VWR International in January.

Pamela Forbes Lieberman joined VWR International’s Board in January. She also serves on the Boards of A.M. Castle & Co. and Standard Motor Products.

BioCision, a provider of advanced temperature management and organization of biomedical samples, entered into a worldwide distribution agreement with VWR.

Spectrum Chemicals & Laboratory Products opened a distribution facility in at its site in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in January.

Spectrum Chemicals & Laboratory Products appointed Marc Hayem CEO, effective February 1.

Seastar Chemicals, a producer of ultra pure acids and base, acquired MV Laboratories, a supplier of high-purity inorganic materials and industrial applications, in January.

Akron Biotechnology (see page 2) partnered with Austin Chemical Company to expand its reach to B2B clients in the biotech, pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries.

Sales for Gerresheimer AG’s Life Science Research division increased 28.5% in fiscal 2008 to €92.8 million ($136.5 million) (see IBO 2/28/09), primarily due to its joint venture with Thermo Fisher Scientific (see IBO 3/31/07), to make up 9% of total company sales. At constant exchange rates, revenue grew 41.0%. Adjusted EBITDA rose 46.8% to €11.3 million ($16.6 million), while adjusted EBITDA margin rose from 10.7% to 12.2%.

In February, Pickering Laboratories agreed to distrbute LCTech’s gel permeation chromatography ULTRA automated sample clean-up and concentration instrument, OtaREAD and AflaREAD ELISA test kits, and OtaCLEAN and AflaCLEAN immunoaffinity sample preparation columns in Canada, Mexico and the US. The agreement extends Pickering’s mycotoxin product line.

Product Introductions

Millipore launched the Elix Advantage water purification system for pure water from tap.

Mettler-Toledo introduced the XP56 Microbalance, featuring a capacity of up to 52 g and a readability of 1 µg.

In November, Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced validation services for its laboratory equipment with a weighing capacity of up to 12 kg.

Sartorius AG launched the Cubis premium balance, featuring readabilities from 0.01 mg to 0.1 g.

Biohit Oyj released the Quanta range of pipette service and calibration software (QuantaCal, QuantaLab, QuantaPro), developed in cooperation with Pipette Doctor.