Campbell Brothers targets Scandinavian market
laboratory market by acquiring Swedish-based lab group Analytica.
The acquisition, made by Campbell's laboratory services subsidiary ALS for $25m (€19.4m) and a further $3m based on future profits, also reinforces its position in the European laboratory market - the group purchased Czech-based Ecochem earlier this year for $18m.
"The acquisition of Analytica, combined with the Czech-based Ecochem laboratory group provides the depth of management and technical staff in Europe to further grow the company," said Greg Kilmister, Campbell's managing director.
Furthermore, Analytica will provide the opportunity to expand and create new capabilities in other geographic regions, the group said.
Analytica provides a broad range of contract testing services to clients through Scandinavia, focusing mainly on the environmental market but also servicing other markets including medicine, pharmaceuticals and isotopic ratios.
In addition to new geographical outreach, it is hoped the acquisition will allow the firm to further expand its presence in the pharmaceutical market and also to develop its existing blood testing capabilities - a particular identified growth market.
"We are one of the few labs in the world to use the ICP-SFMS technique for body fluid analysis and we hope to develop this new technology together with ALS," Kent Utterstrom, Analytica's vice managing director, told Labtechnologist.com.
Analytica has a particular expertise in Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) - a powerful tool for trace and ultra-trace elemental analysis of samples including body fluids. ICP-SFMS, the high-resolution version, allows direct analysis of certain 'difficult' sample types that cannot be handled by conventional ICP-MS.
ICP-MS is rapidly becoming the technique of choice in many analytical laboratories for the accurate and precise measurements needed for demanding applications.
