Washington, DC 3/30/07; Waltham, MA 4/3/07; Portland, OR 4/4/07—The US Federal Trade Commission has approved Thermo Fisher Scientific’s sale of its Genevac business to Riverlake Equity Partners (see IBO 2/15/07). Genevac will merge with SP Industries, another Riverlake company, and SP Industries CEO Charles L. Grant will lead Genevac operations. Terms were not disclosed.

In January, AMETEK formed the Ultra Precision Technologies Division to bring together its Taylor Hobson division with Solartron Metrology and Precitech in order to leverage combined manufacturing operations, technology capabilities and distribution. Symyx Technologies’ 2006 revenues grew 16% to $124.9 million (see page 12), including a 23% increase in Symyx Tools revenues to $37.8 million […]

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will be granting $23 million a year for seven years to establish six Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance. The Centers of Excellence are located at the following institutions: St. Jude Children’s Hospital, UCLA, the […]

Santa Clara, CA 4/6/07; La Jolla, CA 4/6/07—Agilent Technologies has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Stratagene for $10.94 per share of common stock, a 28% premium over Stratagene’s April 5 closing prices, or approximately $246.2 million in cash. Stratagene’s products include reagents and instruments for life science research and clinical diagnostics. “We see Stratagene’s […]

In December 2006, SYSTAG AG, a provider of automated solutions for chemical process development, announced a management buyout of a majority share of the company. Tecan appointed Matthew Robin and Carl Severinghaus to its Group Executive Committee. Mr. Robin is responsible for the Liquid Handling and Robotics business unit. He was previously CEO of medical […]

Santa Clara, CA 3/30/07—Agilent Technologies has created a Materials Sciences Solutions Unit within its Life Science and Chemical Analysis (LSCA) business. The new unit will focus on the development of the company’s microscopy and optical spectroscopy businesses. Agilent’s Nanotechnology Measurement Division, which provides atomic force microscopes (see IBO 11/30/05), will become part of the new […]

China’s ranking for nanotech R&D investments is on the rise, according to a report by Lux Research. China’s climb is credited to lower business costs. In terms of government expenditure, the US, Japan and Germany were the top three in 2006, spending $1.78 billion, $975 million and $563 million, respectively. But when lower business costs […]

College Station, TX 3/23/07—William W. Botts, president and CEO of OI Corporation, has resigned following the completion of an investigation by a special committee into the company’s stock option practices (see IBO 1/31/07). The special committee reviewed stock option grants issued between 1985 and 2006 and found incidences of misdated option grants, the issuance of […]

Simulated moving bed chromatography (SMB) is a variation of conventional liquid chromatography, which provides continuous chromatographic separations, as opposed to batch separations, which account for the majority of chromatography systems. For the most part, the use of SMB in the laboratory is tied to a narrow scope of industrial applications, for which it offers a […]