First quarter IBO Life Science Index sales advanced 6.3%, 7.1% excluding currency to $3,110 million, primarily due to Il-lumina’s strong sequencing revenues. Excluding Illumina, Index sales grew 2.7% or 2.8% on a currency-neutral basis. Overall, pharmaceutical and biopharma sales were strong for a majority of companies in the Index, especially for bioprouction within Thermo’s Life Science Solutions segment and Merck’s Process Solutions business. Affymetrix benefited from strong genetic analysis demand and biobank projects. NanoString posted strong double-digit revenue growth but experienced a sequential decline in pharmaceutical sales due to timing of orders and currency. BioTechne recorded dis-appointing Biotechnology sales due to lower demand from Asian distributors. Growth within the life science market was further muted by weak government funding in Japan.