Under the initial accord, Sotax will include Pall’s Acrodisc PSF syringe filters in all of solid dosage form dissolution systems which, according to the Swiss firm, expedite processing and significantly extend HPLC column life.
Initially, the AT 70smart dissolution and CTS content uniformity systems will be the first to feature the Acrodisc filters, although Sotax is expected to introduce the technology to its other testing platform s in due course.
Pall’s senior VP of global lab products, Larry O’Connell, was positive about the benefits of combining the technologies, suggesting that the deal “advances the performance of the automated laboratory analysis platform.”
O’Connell added that: “Customers can now obtain the dual benefits associated with SOTAX and Pall technology to achieve superior analysis and performance."
Gilles Devidts, head of product management at Sotax, was also upbeat about the deal “the pharmaceutical industry with a significantly improved automated dissolution process for multiple unattended tests.”
Devidts also indicated that the partnership would expand into other areas like media preparation and delivery, automated dosage introduction and sampling in due course.
Pall’s life science sales up in Q2
In other news Pall reported that strong performance by its life science and biopharmaceuticals businesses was key to growth in the second quarter of its financial year.
For the three months ended January 31 operating profit from the division was around $62m, up nearly 27 per cent, with revenues growing just under 10 per cent to $247.4m.
Within life sciences unit biopharmaceuticals made the biggest gains, climbing 14 per cent to $146m driven, according to Pall, by demand for its range of single-use biotechnology manufacturing products.
However, Pall does not expect demand to stay at the level for the rest of the financial year.
CEO Eric Krasnoff said that: “We expect overall Biopharmaceuticals sales growth rate to moderate for the remainder of this fiscal year due to timing of demand within the biotechnology market.”
These comments combined with both the underperformance of other units, notably energy, water and process technologies, and reduced guidance for fiscal 2010, saw Pall’s share price drop 4.9 per cent to $38.83.