DPC and Thermo Electron Sign Distribution Agreement
Diagnostic Products Corporation (NYSE – DP) and Thermo Electron Corporation (NYSE – TMO) announce a distribution agreement for the Thermo Konelab clinical chemistry systems and the TCAutomation laboratory automation products. The agreement provides DPC with distribution rights to sell the Konelab clinical chemistry systems for human clinical diagnostics and veterinary testing in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. In France and Germany, DPC will lead efforts to market the Konelab product line when sold together with the IMMULITE® family of systems, while both companies will continue to serve their other customers. The agreement also provides DPC with nonexclusive distribution rights to the TCAutomation product line when sold together with the IMMULITE systems and Konelab clinical chemistry systems.
“This is a new direction for DPC and we are very excited about this partnership” said Ira Ziering, Senior Vice President, International, DPC. “It provides DPC with the opportunity to sell a consolidated offering of both systems and menu to cover nearly all of a laboratory’s clinical chemistry and immunoassay testing needs, together with state-of-the-art automation, all of which many laboratories today demand.”
Ziering added, “There are currently approximately 3,000 IMMULITE 2000 systems serving the needs of many laboratories worldwide in a variety of testing environments for immunoassay. The recent addition of the IMMULITE 2500 SMS to our family of systems means that DPC can now offer true STAT testing capability to the clinical laboratory market, further enhancing our global offering. The SMS (Sample Management System) component offers even more flexibility in processing immunoassay tests and provides the link to the TCAutomation. The complete workcell product provides customers with an optimal solution for routine testing.”
“DPC is one of the leading immunoassay suppliers in the world, and we believe that Thermo’s clinical chemistry and laboratory automation system products will be well represented by DPC,” said Marc Casper, President of the Life and Laboratory Sciences Group of Thermo Electron. “The combination of immunoassay, clinical chemistry and automation products will be a very attractive solution for current and new customers.”
Continued Casper, “We have successfully marketed Thermo’s Konelab generation of clinical chemistry systems for many years, with more than 2,000 Konelab systems installed in routine and specialty testing laboratories worldwide. The partnership with DPC allows us to continue to build on the success of our product lines by effectively addressing two of the key demands of laboratories today: the need for a consolidated, broad menu offering and the need to automate laboratory processes.”
The IMMULITE family of products offers customers a solution to their immunoassay testing needs, whether they are large reference labs, hospital labs or physician office labs. The extensive breadth of the test menu, the ease of use and reliability of the IMMULITE systems have made them widely accepted throughout the world. For more information on the automated chemiluminescent IMMULITE immunoassay systems, please call toll-free 800.444.5757, fax 310.645.9999 or e-mail info@dpconline.com .
A world leader in high-tech instruments, Thermo Electron Corporation helps life science, laboratory, and industrial customers advance scientific knowledge, enable drug discovery, improve manufacturing processes, and protect people and the environment with instruments, scientific equipment, services, and software solutions. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Electron has revenues of more than $2 billion, and employs approximately 11,000 people in 30 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.thermo.com .
Founded in 1971, Diagnostic Products Corporation (DPC) is the global leader dedicated exclusively to immunodiagnostic testing. The Company’s product menu includes about 100 immunoassays for medically important substances and nearly 350 specific allergens and allergy panels. DPC also designs and manufactures automated laboratory instrumentation, which provides fast, accurate results while reducing labor and reagent costs. DPC sells its products to hospitals, clinics and laboratories domestically and in over 100 other countries. Additional Company information can be found on DPC’s website at www.dpcweb.com .
Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These factors include the effects of governmental or other actions relating to the FDA’s decision that its Application Integrity Policy should be applied to the Company or relating to the Company’s Chinese affiliate; the rate of customer demand for the Company’s products; the Company’s ability to successfully market new and existing products; its dependence on certain suppliers; domestic and foreign government regulation; its ability to keep abreast of technological innovations and to translate them into new products; competition; political and economic instability in certain markets including the movements of foreign currencies relative to the dollar; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed from time to time in the Company’s SEC reports and filings.
