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Focusing on personalized support and customized solutions, Shimadzu Analytical India grew its life sciences business to Rs 128 crore in 2007-08.

Shimadzu Analytical (India) Pvt Ltd (SAIP) is a subsidiary of Shimadzu Corporation, Japan, a pioneer of several leading technologies in the areas of analytical, scientific and process control instrumentation, environmental monitoring systems, and industrial machinery. Shimadzu Analytical (India) was set up in 2006 to step up its commitment to India. Nonetheless, Shimadzu Analytical is not a new entrant to the Indian life sciences industry. It has more than four decades of presence in India through four partners--Spinco Biotech, Toshvin Analytical Pvt Ltd, Swan Environmental Pvt Ltd and Amkette Analytics Ltd. And its direct entry to India was a step towards extending that long-lasting relationship with enhanced personalized support, diverse product portfolio, and customized solutions.

SAIP's business in India continues to grow on that fundamental strategy of stronger relationships and personalized support. In 2007-08, its total revenues in India stood at Rs 185 crore, with its life sciences division alone contributing Rs 128 crore and registering over 16.4 percent growth compared to the previous fiscal's life sciences business of Rs 110 crore. This growth has come despite the currency fluctuation in India.

"India offers tremendous opportunities for SAIP. We have plans to take full advantage of this dynamic market situation. We have distributors in India who are with us for more than 40 years. SAIP's approach is to support customers with innovative solutions to their growing needs," said Senya Imamichi, managing director, Shimadzu Analytical India.

As part of its strategy of being closer to the customer, SAIP set up a customer support center in Mumbai in 2006-07 to provide training on different instruments to the customers, besides helping the customer on method development. In 2007-08, it opened a new customer support center in New Delhi to strengthen its technical and application support to the customers and upgraded its Mumbai center. In its efforts to provide personalized solutions, SAIP signed an agreement with Waters and launched Empower connectivity, which facilitates the Empower software to seamlessly connect and control with Shimadzu HPLC. "This has been a request from many customers in India and by this connectivity, we are confident of gaining more space in Laboratory," added Imamichi.

SAIP is a leading vendor of HPLC systems and targets the pharmaceutical market, which has highest market requirement. Its fully-automated HPLC system, LC-2010HT, has been well received by almost all major life science companies in India and has over 2,000 installations. Prominence, launched about two years back, has specs and performance that are a benchmark in the industry. Prominence has over 1,000 installations in the country.

The company recently launched five new products in India, namely UV-1800 (Spectrophotometer), IRAffinity-1 (FTIR), MultiNA (Micro Capillary Electrophoresis System), UFLC-XR (Ultra Fast LC system) and the Nano HPLC. And SAIP will concentrate on the promotion of these products this year through seminars and by participating in major trade shows.