Olympus Opens Global R&D Centre in Munich

Olympus celebrated the opening of its Global R&D Centre for Life Sciences in Munich at the end of last month, a project that will see investment of around 15 million Euros with expectations of employing about 450 people by 2009.
Dr Helmut Köhler, Executive Managing Director of both Olympus Life Science Europa GmbH and Olympus Life Science Research Europa GmbH said, “We are bringing together a highly-qualified team from different fields of specialisation under one roof and are thus creating an interdisciplinary work environment from which all departments will benefit.
“Our objective, in addition to early detection, is individualised disease prevention, analysis and prevention along with follow-up treatment.”
The new facility will focus on taking in vitro diagnostics, laboratory automation and molecular biology, as well as digital image processing and microscopy applications to the next level, the company said.
Over the past four years the company reports growth rates averaging 15.8% in microscopy and 10.4% in diagnostics, placing it as a leading company in the respective markets. Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the President of the Olympus Corporation commented:
“The life sciences sector at Olympus has experienced continuous growth in recent years and is strategically important to us. With our new global Research and Development Centre in Munich we have created the foundation for future sustained growth in this business segment.”