Shimadzu continues its new launches   
Recession did bring a slowdown on  Shimadzu  Analytical’s overall life sciences business, this however did not stop Shimadzu  Analytical India from launching five new products, upgrading its technologies and continuing its R&D projects.

Shimadzu  Analytical (India), a subsidiary of Shimadzu Asia Pacific (based out of Japan), has a business focus on offering technologies in the field of  analytical, scientific instrumentation, process control instrumentation and environmental monitoring. Started in 2006 in India, the company caters to a number of industrial segments, with a chunk of business coming from  the life sciences industry.  For its operations in India, Shimadzu  has four marketing partners  namely Spinco Biotech, Toshvin Analytical, Swan Environmental and Amkette Analytics. Shimadzu  Analytical has been operating in the Indian life sciences space for the past 40 years through these distributors.
The company in India clocked an annual sales revenue of Rs 154 crore from life sciences alone as against Rs 128 crore in fiscal 2007-08. Apart from life sciences, the company also caters to other industry segments like  automobiles. A break up of their total revenue  shows that around 70 percent of their revenue comes from life sciences alone, while the remaining 30 percent comes from other industries.
Commenting on the slowdown in growth, Senya Imamichi, managing director, Shimadzu Analytical India, said, “Last year we were expecting a growth of 15-17 percent, but due to the sudden economic crisis and recession worldwide, there was a slowdown in our growth. However, there might have been slowdown but we did not see any negative growth in our business in India.” 
Since most of Shimadzu’s business transactions happens in the Japanese Yen, the company saw a status quo in their turnover due to forex fluctuations. In India, many customers postponed or put a freeze on their projects which did show its repercussions. “During recession in India. most of the life sciences companies postponed or freezed their projects in the last six months. The demand was definitely there but they are  careful in investing in big projects. This also includes Shimadzu‘s customer projects,  especially those who wanted to expand their business,” elaborated Imamichi.
However this did not stop the company from launching  five products into the Indian market. In the area of  life science, the company moves forward with the comprehensive development of instruments, reagents, and contract analysis. This development is based mainly on protein analysis technology, which is important for medical treatment and developing pharmaceuticals, and mass DNA sequencing technology, which is important for genetic analysis.
 “Despite recession we still continue and would go ahead with our product launches even for this year,” concluded Imamichi.