Airgas named James A. Muller senior vice president, Specialty Gases and Life Sciences, in January. He was previously president of Airgas East.

In March, Air Liquide purchased Linde Gas UK based on an enterprise value of €105 million ($138.2 million). Air Liquide UK’s sales are around €60 million ($78.9 million).

In March, Corning Life Sciences named Lab Deals an authorized full-line distribution partner.

Techcomp agreed to distribute SP Industries’ VirTis line of freeze dryer equipment in China and Hong Kong.

Kimble Glass, a Gerresheimer company, acquired Comar’s glass division, excluding the glass pipette manufacturing business, in April.

BioMérieux acquired Spain’s Biomedics, a specialized provider of culture media, in April. Biomedics posted 2006 revenues of €4.1 million ($3.1 million).

Light Labs added the LabNet line of lab equipment.

Biosample management firm GenVault raised $17 million in venture financing in April.

Eppendorf AG’s 2006 sales declined 2.0% to €314.5 million ($393.1 million) (see IBO 5/31/07). Excluding the divested Brinkmann business, sales improved 11.7%. Cost of sales decreased 11.0% to €130.6 million. North American sales declined 17.5% to 46% of revenues, but grew 7.4% excluding Brinkmann and currency effects. Western European sales rose 11.1% to 35% of sales, Asia/Pacific sales rose 24.9% to 14.8% of sales and sales to other regions rose 38.2%. During the year, the company opened offices in Dubai and Moscow, Russia, and new regional marketing headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Fluorochem is providing Elsevier MDL with electronic updates of product and pricing information for MDL’s Available Chemicals Directory database.

Honeywell will distribute OLS OMNI Life Science GmbH & Co. KG products for lab and R&D applications in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Turkey under the Honeywell Burdick & Jackson label.

Biohit Oyj announced it is investigating whether to spin off its diagnostics business into a separate company.

In May, Biohit Oyj announced that it is now a VWR focus supplier of pipettors and disposable pipettor tips in Europe. Biohit is a VWR focus supplier for the US.

GenScript, whose services include custom gene synthesis, molecular biology services and peptide synthesis, joined VWR’s Biosciences program.

Whatman appointed Jeffrey Hewitt to its Board in May. He is chairman of Plasmon. Tom McNally and David Evans retired from the Board.

Whatman appointed Chris Rickard finance director. He was previously finance director for VT Group. COO Ian Bonnar is leaving the company and his responsibilities for manufacturing will be transferred to Manfred Baumann, vice president of Manufacturing.