Company Announcements

In January, Shimadzu opened a subsidiary in Malaysia with 44 employees. The company also plans to establish a manufacturing facility for Analytical and Measuring Instruments and an applications lab at the location. The new plant is expected to begin operation in December 2016. Local distributors will still be utilized for XRF spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, XRD and testing machines. The firm estimates its Malaysian Analytical and Measuring Instrument sales will reach $15.1 million in 2018.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Vice President and CFO Peter M. Wilver retired March 31. He will be succeeded by Stephen Williamson, vice president of Financial Operations, effective August 1.

Bruker announced in February that it has proposed a 9% reduction, or slightly less than 200 positions, in head count at its Biospin Group.

Robert P. Wayman retired from Affymetrix’s Board in February.

Affymetrix Founder and Chairman Stephen Fodor, PhD, retired from the Board in February.

Illumina announced in February that its Illumina Accelerator Boost Capital (see IBO 4/30/14) secured an initial capital commitment of $40 million from Viking Global Investors.

Illumina announced that Board member Dr. Gerald Möller will retire in May.

In March, Illumina named Russia-based Albiogen as a distributor for Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Thermo Fisher Scientific disclosed in its annual SEC filing that it acquired Prionics (see IBO 3/31/14) for an aggregate of $36 million, net of cash acquired.

Techcomp’s fourth quarter 2014 sales grew 9.1% to $59.7 million (see IBO 3/15/15) primarily due to the acquired GC product lines (see IBO 10/15/14). For the year, sales declined 2.3% to $162.7 million, as Distribution sales fell 4.3% to account for 66% of revenues. Manufacturing sales grew 2.0% to make up 34%. Sales in China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Asia and Europe declined 2.6%, 1.2% and 7.6% to make up 73%, 8% and 15% of sales, respectively. Sales in Others climbed 35.3% to make up 4%, driven by US sales from the acquisition. Gross margin expanded 100 basis points to 31.2% of sales. Adjusted operating profit grew 1.9% to $7.2 million.

QIAGEN disclosed in its year-end SEC filing that it acquired Enzymatics (see IBO 1/15/14) for a total cash consideration of $114.2 million.

In March, PerkinElmer announced a collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Innovation to provide JLABS @South San Francisco, a newly opened life science incubator, with instruments and lab services, including on-site staff, training and scientific application support.

Sigma-Aldrich disclosed in its year-end SEC filing that it acquired Cell Marque (see IBO 10/15/14) for $170 million in cash.