INTERVIEW

"Kendro Acquisition Provides Valuable Extension"

- Patrick Loh, director of Commercial Operations, Asia Pacific and Arab Peninsula Region, Thermo Electron Corporation

Patrick Loh, director of Commercial Operations, Asia Pacific and Arab Peninsula Region, Thermo Electron Corporation spoke to BioSpectrum's Narayan Kulkarni about Thermo's plan in India after the acquisition of Kendro. Excerpts from an interview:

How will the acquisition of Kendro by Thermo help the customers at large and Indian customers in specific?

Thermo Electron is the world's leading company with a turnover of over $2.2 billion. Thermo today is proud to supply some of the world's highly respected brands of products like Labsystems, Forma, Savant, Jouan etc. The addition of Kendro's range now brings us much closer to our goal of becoming the premier supplier of products and services for the laboratory. Kendro's addition to Thermo provides Thermo Electron with a valuable extension to its team and new product families that will add industry leading centrifuge and thermal equipment. This will surely allow us to be more flexible in our product offerings to customers and increase service capabilities. The combination of Kendro and Thermo allows us to offer our customers the strongest, most comprehensive line of laboratory equipment products and value-added services in the industry for preparing, processing and storing laboratory samples.

With this acquisition, how do you see the growth and market opportunities in Asia Pacific and India in particular?

Definitely Thermo sees this as an opportunity to increase its market share. With the wider range of product and service offerings to our customers, we now can further strengthen our market positions in each market.

Which Asia Pacific country is offering more business to Thermo considering the growth potential of biotechnology?

The focus region for Thermo is Asia-Pacific. The growth rate of the Asia Pacific region is very good and is sure to continue. India definitely is one of the fastest growing markets apart from China, Japan and Korea in the Asia pacific.

Under what brand name will Kendro's products be sold in the market?

The Kendro Laboratory Products company name (and other company names) will be replaced by Thermo Electron Corporation. Many of Kendro's individual product names are well respected and Thermo will continue to use them.

What will be the fate of the dealers and distributors of Kendro in India?

No changes are occurring immediately regarding product line/distributor relationships. However, all current relationships will be studied for their value for Thermo to go forward through the rest of 2005. Also our goal is to include all our distributors/channel partners in the study.

Who will be the sales contact for the customer in requirement for a Kendro product?

The sales contact would remain the same. We do not anticipate any radical changes in the combined sales force of Kendro and Thermo Electron immediately.