"Asia is where the action is"

-Marc N Casper, executive vice-president, ThermoFisher

ThermoFisher Scientific, a company that was formed by the merger of Thermo Electron Corporation and Fisher Scientific International, has moved on from strength to strength and bolstered its Indian operations in an enterprising manner. Dr G Ramakrishnan, managing director of ThermoFisher India and Marc N Casper, executive vice president, ThermoFisher spoke to CyberMedia News weeks after the company celebrated its first anniversary on the November 9, 2007. Excerpts from the interview:

You have just celebrated one year of operations. Could you give us the highlights of your journey so far?

Marc N Casper: The company has just celebrated its first anniversary on November 9. Thermo Electron Corporation has a long history dating back over hundred years. Our focus as a new company has to become the world leader in serving science to our customers. We are very focused on innovation because we are going to help our customers with our set of products and innovative set of products and focused on bringing new products.

What are the technological challenges that Indian markets offer to companies like ThermoFisher?

Marc N Casper: From a technology point of view or even if you look at the CRO (Contract Research Organization) scenario point of view-Indian market wants to make sure that it has the best technology because there are global partners around the world-the technology needs to be the same. The challenge is how to get the same level of technology across all the geographies. The best of spectrometers are all present in India now. However, in the coming years the technology that would heavily be utilized would in the infrastructure of laboratory level that is at the basic level where it is still not that high as in other markets.

ThermoFisher acquired Qualigens Fine Chemicals which is a division of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited in 2007. How strategic was this move from your company's standpoint in the Indian markets?

Marc N Casper: The acquisition of Qualigens gives us a very strong presence in India. Because of the importance of having a strong distribution in India, we acquired the company and its 140 employees gives us a much better footprint in the Indian markets.

Could you give us instances both from the Indian standpoint and from the global point where your solutions have benefited your patrons?

Dr Ramakrishnan: We acquired Massachusetts-based Cohesive Technologies that is a leader in producing liquid chromatography products and advanced sample extraction. That acquisition strengthened our in-line sampling preparation capabilities that could be coupled with mass spectrometric technology to build a stronger workflow solutions for organic molecule and other drug analyses.

Marc N Casper: From the global standpoint I would use the mass spectrometry example. We have constantly innovated ourselves in this domain be it with our LTQ XL Linear Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer with ETD (Electron Transfer Dissociation) for proteomics, Accela(TM) High Speed Chromatography System, patented FAIMS Technology for high sensitivity LC/MS/MS quantitation and the TSQ Quantum(TM) Access Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer. These products are employing cutting edge technology and our focus to understand the customers have always made us stand apart.

Going forward, where would ThermoFisher concentrate in the coming quarters?

Marc Casper: Concentration is firmly on geographically-Asia is clearly where the action is. It's where the innovation is and this is where large customers are present--continuous focus on this market.

Prasad Ramasubramanian,
CyberMedia News