Growth Here and Abroad

Tim S. Oostdyk, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief operating officer At Lancaster Laboratories, our goal is to be the premier provider of analytical services worldwide, and this edition of our newsletter is packed with examples of how we’re achieving that goal. There’s a major building expansion at our corporate headquarters in Lancaster, a laboratory acquisition across the pond in Ireland and significant investment in sophisticated new technologies in our laboratories. These new initiatives support our strategy of expanding our services to the broad base of pharmaceutical clients that we serve, including both large and small molecule companies of all sizes, from big Pharma to virtual companies. Many of you who manufacture or market products in the European Union (EU) have expressed interest in using our company to support testing there, including EU batch release testing. The purchase of Microchem Laboratories, the largest contract lab in Ireland, allows us to now serve your needs both in the U.S. and abroad. To quickly provide an EU presence, we looked for an established firm with a reputation and culture that aligns with our own. We are extremely pleased to have acquired Microchem, a company known for providing customers with outstanding quality and a diversified range of testing technologies. Their staff of approximately 100 people provides excellent capacity now, as well as a very strong platform for our future growth overseas. In addition to their experienced scientific staff, we know you’ll appreciate working with the excellent leadership team that manages the operations at Microchem. Our efforts to provide you with the broadest array of analytical services don’t stop with the Microchem acquisition. Over on this side of the Atlantic, we’re constructing new laboratories to house more scientists and equipment to meet your testing needs. When completed, our building addition in Lancaster will contain 50,000 square feet of new laboratory space, increasing the facility to a total of 225,000 square feet. Much of the new space will be dedicated to the testing of biopharmaceutical products, as we continue to increase our capacity in biochemistry, molecular biology, and virology. To further expand our services, we’ve acquired some of the latest in new technology, including an Orbitrap mass spectrometer, MALDI-TOF, and a multi-angle light scattering detector. And to make it even easier for you to work with us, we’ve taken communication with our clients to a new level with the introduction of LabAccess, our innovative new web-based portal. LabAccess is a free on-line service that provides you with convenient real-time access to comprehensive project information including the raw data, test results, certificates of analysis, complete data packages, invoicing information and more. We hope you’ll visit LabAccess.com soon to discover a whole new way of interacting with a contract laboratory. I’m confident that you will be pleased you took the time to check out what LabAccess can do for you. It’s always extremely gratifying for us to reflect on the number of products that we’ve helped our clients bring to market. From our acquisition in Europe, to our expansion of facilities and services here in the U.S., we’re very excited about the opportunities they afford us to serve your needs more completely. Thank you for the trust that you continue to put in us, and we greatly appreciate your business.