Global Instrument Company 15 Years Ranking

American Chemical Society C & EN magazine on April 29, 2013 released the "2012 Global Instruments TOP25 list," with each instrument company in 2012, "worked hard" to find their own seating in the TOP25 list.

Up to now, there are two institutions in the world that have successively issued the "Global Instrument Company Rankings", namely British Instrumenta Magazine and American C&EN Magazine. Looking at the TOP10 list of global instrument companies in the past 15 years (instrumental release from 1998 to 2007; released by C&EN from 2008 to 2012. For details, see the table below), we can appreciate the fickleness of the global instrument industry for 15 years.

M&A and integration change the ranking list, once the powerful companies disappeared in the rankings, and some companies have grown and become the “dark horses” in the rankings. Of course, some companies have been very stable for 15 years. Top 10 in the rankings.

In the list of the past 15 years, the companies that disappeared were Amersham Pharmacist Biotech (also known as Amersham Biosciences, Amersham), Apogent (also known as Sybron), Fisher, ABI (Applied Biosystems, Also called PE Applied Biosystems, PE Biosystems), Varian.

In 1998-2001, Anmacia consistently ranked fourth in the rankings. In 2004, GE acquired Amphasi for a $9.5 billion share exchange and merged Anmacia and GE Medical businesses into GE Healthcare. Since then, Anmacia has disappeared from the list. In 2008 and 2009, GE Healthcare once again entered the top 10 list, ranking eighth.

Apogent, formerly Sybron Laboratories Products Division, was split and independent from Sybron in December 2000. However, only 4 years after the split, in 2004, Apogent was acquired by Fisher Scientific for US$3.7 billion. In 2005 and 2006, Fisher was ranked second in the rankings with the acquisition of Apogent. Unfortunately, it was not long afterwards. In 2006, Thermo Electron completed a “snake swallowing” deal, bringing down Fisher at 10.6 billion U.S. dollars. After the merger, the company changed its name to Thermo Fisher. Since then, Thermo Fisher has once been “disclosure” on the rankings.

In the 10 years before 2007, ABI has been in the top three rankings. In 2008, Invitrogen acquired it from Applera, the ABI-owned group, for US$6.7 billion. After the acquisition, the company was renamed Life Technologies. Both ABI and Invitrogen disappeared in the rankings. In the following two years, Life Technologies ranked first in the list. On April 15 this year, Thermo Fisher announced that it had purchased Life Technologies for $13.6 billion. In the 2013 ranking, Life Technologies will no longer appear.

Varian has only appeared once in the TOP10 in the past 15 years, which is the tenth in 2007. But her “story” in the rankings did not end, but was continued by Agilent. In 2009, Agilent acquired Varian for $1.5 billion. With this acquisition, Agilent took the top spot in the 2010 rankings. This is the first time Agilent has returned to the list after 8 years.

It was Danaher who became the dark horse in the rankings because of the growth of mergers and acquisitions. In 2004, Danaher appeared for the first time in the Top 10 list, ranking seventh. In 2005, Danaher purchased Leica Microsystems for $550 million and entered the life science instrument market. In 2007 Danaher’s ranking came to second place. In 2009, Danaher acquired Canadian MDS Analytical Technology Division and its joint venture with Life Technologies for mass spectrometry business for US$1.1 billion. This business is operated by AB SCIEX. In 2011, Danaher spent another $6.8 billion to acquire Beckman Coulter. A series of mergers and acquisitions created Danaher's potential of “dark horses”, ranking the first in two consecutive years in 2011 and 2012. However, with the acquisition of Life Technologies by Thermo Scientific, in the 2013 rankings, Thermo Fisher should be able to shake Danaher’s position first.

So who is the company with consistently strong performance in the past 15 years? Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thermo Fisher, also called Thermo Electron, Thermo Instrument Systems), Agilent (Agilent, also called HP), Life Technologies (also called Applied Biosystems, PE Applied Biosystems, PE Biosystems), Shimadzu ( Shimadzu, Waters, and Perkin Elmer (also called PE Analytical) have been among the top 10 companies for 15 years. They have never left, but only changed their seats.

15 years, topped the list by Thermo Fisher, Agilent, Life Technologies (AB Biosystems), Danaher four companies share, of which Thermo Fisher has topped the list six times, Life Technologies5 times, Agilent 4 Times, Danaher 2 times.

At the same time, of the 15 companies that have ranked among the top 10 companies in the past 15 years, U.S. companies accounted for the overwhelming majority, with 13 companies in the list; 3 Japanese companies entered the list; 2 German companies entered the list; 2 Swiss companies entered the list; One company has entered the rankings; the top three rankings for 15 years have been dominated by US companies. The 15 years ranking is more like a US company's competition.