Chicago, IL and Santa Clara, CA 2/3/10—Agilent Technologies has sold Hycor Biomedical, which it acquired through its purchase of Stratagene (see IBO 4/15/07), to private equity firm Linden. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Hycor develops, manufacturers and markets in vitro diagnostic products for the allergy, autoimmune and urinanalysis markets. “Hycor is an innovative, […]

Twelve of the 21 companies in the IBO Laboratory Instrument Sales Index reported fourth-quarter earnings before this issue’s publication. For these companies, revenues grew 7.5%, operating profits climbed 11.0% and operating margins improved 80 basis points to 21.0% of sales. Total fourth-quarter revenue and operating profits for the Index are estimated to have grown 5%–6% […]

An effort to increase the sensitivity and specificity of the analyses of toxic metal impurities in drug articles (including natural source and rDNA biologics), dietary supplements and excipients is advancing, and could benefit makers of Inductively Coupled Plasma–Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES), ICP-MS and microwave digestion systems. The January/February issue of the US Pharmacopeia’s (USP) Pharmacopeial […]

Sunnyvale, CA 2/11/10; Washington, DC 2/11/10—Symyx Technologies will transfer the assets of its High Productivity Research (HPR) unit to a new company, HPR Global. The company will receive $8.6 million of positive net working capital from Symyx in return for a $10.0 million note and 19.5% equity stake. Symyx retains rights to royalties and license […]

New York, NY and Tokyo, Japan 2/9/10—Sony Corporation of America has acquired iCyt Mission Technology, a provider of cell sorters, for an undisclosed amount. “We are confident that this acquisition will accelerate the development of Sony’s flow cytometry business by combining Sony’s expertise in the manufacturing of electronics products for consumers and professionals with the […]

Waltham, MA 2/1/10; Waltham, MA 2/2/10—Thermo Fisher Scientific has completed its second and third acquisitions this year (see IBO 1/31/10). On February 1, Thermo announced a definitive agreement to purchase Finnzymes, a provider of PCR solutions, including reagents, instruments, consumables and kits, including the Phire and Phusion DNA polymerases. Based in Espoo, Finland, Finnzymes has […]

The economic downturn has hurt European companies in the microtechnology, nanotechnology and advanced materials industries, according to a survey by IVAM Research completed in December 2009. The sector accounted for nearly €44 billion ($62 billion) in revenues in 2009 and had 310,000 employees. Twenty-seven percent of the companies surveyed reported a decline of more than […]

Downsizing, outsourcing and restructuring continue to be major themes for R&D operations at the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Since fall of 2009, five major drug companies have announced R&D restructurings. In fact, for most of these companies, the latest announcements are extensions of similar efforts within the last two years to improve R&D productivity and […]

Last year, the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) approved 19 new molecular entities, compared to 21 the year before. The CDER also approved six biologic license applications, up from three in 2008. New biologics accounted for 24% of new approvals, the highest percentage ever. The highest number of approvals were for cancer […]

PetroChina heads PFC Energy’s latest ranking of the top 50 listed energy groups according to market capitalization. PetroChina and other national oil groups had slipped in the rankings last year due to the economic crisis. PetroChina, which first ascended to number one in 2007, has a market value of $353.1 billion. Market values for national […]