Marking the conference and exhibit’s 71st year, Pittcon 2020, organized by the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy was held in Chicago, Illinois from March 1 to March 5 (short courses began February 29). The conference is one of the largest conferences and exhibition for analytical chemists and other scientists. As usual, several companies held press conferences at the show.

Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (SSI) kept its tradition intact of holding a press conference that highlighted a slew of products representing a variety of markets. The company also had the largest booth on the floor. SSI highlighted several important products, including some shown at Pittcon 2019. Recently introduced products discussed included the Nexera Prep SFC system that was launched three months ago (see “Pittcon 2020 New Products”).

MilliporeSigma held a press conference to debut its LANEXO Lab Inventory, Safety and Compliance Management System (see “Pittcon New Products”). Discussing the product, the company emphasized the need for real-time solutions and a centralized lab platform. The vendor-neutral system automates a number of routine tasks, including inventory management, storage and compliance using an Android smartphone and RFID tags designed to withstand lab hazards. The company noted that an advantage of its RFID tags is that open dates are automatically registered and expiration dates are automatically calculated. The system is built on NFC (near field communication) technology rather than WiFi.

At its press conference, JEOL USA announced a partnership to integrate its Q1500 single quadrupole MS with NETZSCH’s GC-thermal analyzer. The company also announced version 2 of its msFineAnalysis software for GC/MS. New features include different colors to indicate different confidence levels in compound identification. In addition, the company detailed a partnership with RIKEN to use NMR and crystallography to analyze crystal structures that have not been solved before, such as microcrystals measuring 0.1–1 µm can be seen.

CEM continued its tradition of launching a new product—the Phoenix Black (see “Pittcon 2020 New Products”)—at the show and of holding its press conference at its booth. The company also provided business updates including estimated revenue of $200 million by 2023, a 50% growth rate for sales of the EDGE automated solvent extraction system, which was introduced last year at Pittcon, and a growing installed base of its production-scale peptide synthesis systems due to the development of peptide drugs.

At its press conference, Metrohm USA announced the winner of its eighth annual Young Chemist Award, Pawan Jolly, PhD, a senior research scientist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute. Dr. Jolly was recognized for his work on an anti-fouling coating to advance the use of point-of-care diagnostics. Metrohm USA also provided a company update, citing more than 260 employees and a focus on application labs and its partnership with US Pharmacopeia.

Next year’s show will take place March 6-10 in New Orleans, Louisiana.