Kyoto, Japan--HORIBA announces the acquisition of the global assets of Photon Technology International (Birmingham, NJ) and its affiliate companies. HORIBA Instruments (based in the US) and other HORIBA Scientific group companies have acquired PTI's worldwide business assets with the aim of increasing market share in fluorescence spectroscopy by taking advantage of PTI's well-established network in the biomedical field and their leadership position in such techniques as intracellular ion imaging. These techniques are crucial in areas such as understanding cellular processes for regenerative medical therapies and developing next-generation food and agricultural products--all applications with expectations for rapid growth.
PTI supplies fluorescence spectroscopy research instrumentation, serving the university and research labs, industrial, and biomedical markets. PTI says it is the world leader in microscopy based fluorometers, especially for ion imaging, in part due to a long-standing research and development collaboration with a prestigious laboratory in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Western Ontario in ON, Canada.
In 1997 HORIBA acquired Jobin Yvon, in France and the US, a world leader in spectroscopic analysis, expanding HORIBA's technology to include the visible light range. HORIBA's Fluorescence Spectroscopy Division based in the US provides solutions for national institutions and universities for analyzing everything from proteins to cutting-edge materials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide. HORIBA says it is the world leader in fluorescence spectroscopy with 15% global market share per the October 2012 SDI report (see http://www.strategic-directions.com/pdf/Global%20Report%2012%20promo.pdf).
Recent economic developments resulting in the reduction of global government research spending have leveled-off new product demand at universities and national research institutions. However, demand for fluorescence-based spectral analysis in the life sciences is growing, driven by biomedical applications such as next-generation regenerative medical therapies (using Pluripotent Stem (PS) cells, for example) and developing next-generation food and agricultural products. Thus the market for equipment (including software) for product development and productizing at biomedical and life science companies is increasing.
HORIBA aims to take advantage of this trend to increase its market share in fluorescence spectroscopy by using PTI's network in these rapidly growing areas. It also aims to expand PTI's Canadian production and engineering to take advantage of their lower-cost production capability and engineering efficiency to further expand its fluorescence products into the material analysis market. With this acquisition, five years from now in 2018 HORIBA targets $44 million dollars total sales in HORIBA's fluorescence spectroscopy business.