Olympus creates one Life Science Group
Olympus America (Center Valley, Pennsylvania) said it is combining its Scientific Equipment Group, Diagnostic Systems Group and Life Science Business Development unit to create a single Life Science Group. The move, it said, will align the company's organization with that of other Olympus entities worldwide and ready it for growing emphasis on translational research and personalized medicine over the next decade.
Stephen Tang, vice president for Life Science Business Development, will take on a newly created position as group vice president and general manager, Life Science. He will oversee all operations of the group, including U.S. product and business development, sales, service, marketing, communications and training.
The creation of the Life Science Group comes before the retirement of George Steares, who has announced plans to retire as head of the Scientific Equipment Group in June.
The Olympus Scientific Equipment Group markets microscopes, imaging systems and solutions, and claims the largest U.S. market share in both clinical and educational microscopes. The company says its Diagnostic Systems Group is the leading supplier of chemistry analyzers for large reference labs; its blood banking systems are used to oversee the safety of about 90% of the U.S. blood supply.
Saliva changes name to StatSure Diagnostic
Saliva Diagnostic Systems (Framingham, Massachusetts) reported the company has changed its name to StatSure Diagnostic Systems, and its new ticker symbol is SSUR.
The new name reflects the company's focus on its flagship product StatSure HIV, a rapid, point-of-care test to detect HIV. The StatSure technology platform works on whole blood, serum or plasma and has been designed to provide a simple and safe means to obtain accurate and reliable results for a broad spectrum of infectious diseases. The company is actively engaged in establishing a series of applications for its patented format.
Nidek Technologies merges with Nidek
As of April 1, Nidek Technologies America (NTA; Greensboro, North Carolina), has merged with Nidek (Fremont, California) to consolidate its clinical, development, distribution, marketing and sales efforts in the U.S. to Nidek's location in Fremont.
The move is designed to allow Nidek to expand both its customer base, and increase product offerings to new and existing customers.
Hideo Ozawa, president and founder of Nidek, said, "With this merger we want to focus our efforts on the strong synergies that both NTA and Nidek bring to the marketplace. Bringing the two groups together will allow Nidek to offer one source for its advanced diagnostics and surgical ophthalmic instrumentation to the vision care professional in the U.S."
NTA had delivered advanced ophthalmic diagnostic instruments for corneal and retinal applications. One of the new releases is the Magellan Mapper, a system that maps any corneal aberration, providing more information to explain the patient's vision.
Perceptronix opens Vancouver laboratory
Perceptronix Medical (Vancouver, British Columbia) reported the opening of its first Quantitative Cytology Laboratory in Vancouver.
Perceptronix Quantitative Cytology Laboratory is designed to offer advanced quantitative clinical laboratory services to assist clinicians in the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer. The lab utilizes the Perceptronix ClearCyte Quantitative Cytology System and Clear2C Quantitative DNA Staining Kit to measure gross genomic aberrations. Both devices received Health Canada Class II medical device approval earlier this year.
ClearCyte is an automated microscopy imaging system used to measure DNA properties in cell samples of different tissues. Combined with expert interactive review of cells, ClearCyte test results may provide clinicians with valuable information related to the clinical diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.