CENTER VALLEY, Pa. November 11, 2008 – Olympus America Inc. has signed an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific to enhance Olympus’ laboratory automation offerings to U.S. customers with a comprehensive open track automation solution for clinical laboratories. The new product offering will complement existing Olympus Lab Automation products including the OLA2500®. The agreement between the companies will allow laboratory professionals to create best-of-breed comprehensive solutions incorporating Olympus AU®-series clinical chemistry and immunoassay analyzers including various third-party analyzers. The open track-based system will offer mid-sized to large hospital and regional laboratories unprecedented flexibility and access to additional test capabilities, and it will also allow customers to consolidate and automate such sample processing procedures as decapping, centrifugation, aliquoting, recapping and storage/retrieval, which is in development. The agreement enables Olympus to distribute the Thermo Scientific TCAutomation™ product line, a fully featured, track-based laboratory automation product line, in the Americas. Olympus will handle sales and marketing and provide primary level service and support of the automation products.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to further expand our presence in the United States with new chemistry options and applicability in broader areas of the lab. Olympus’ strength in high-throughput clinical chemistry is a key advantage for customers who are designing a comprehensive system that includes our products,” said Bill Ostman, vice president and general manager of Thermo Fisher’s Clinical Diagnostics Finland unit.

“The use of the Thermo Scientific open track with our Olympus clinical chemistry systems will allow our customers to build cost-effective, consolidated systems. Customers can achieve automation and integration without compromise, allowing them to better meet the pressures of reduced staffing and increased efficiency demands,” added Hiro Sekiya, director of marketing for the Olympus America Inc., Diagnostic Systems Group.

Key benefits of laboratory automation include more efficient sample management, improved laboratory services and shortened turnaround times. By automating the main pre-analytical steps, such as centrifugation, decapping, aliquoting and sorting, Thermo Scientific TCAutomation products help to manage current and future workloads; it interfaces with Olympus chemistry systems plus a wide selection of third-party instruments.