Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, today announced that Frost & Sullivan recently named it the company of the year for integrated biobanking solutions. After extensive analysis of the biobanking market, Frost & Sullivan concluded that there are currently no other market participants with such a diverse and cutting-edge portfolio of products, services and solutions for the biobanking industry. Organizations that take advantage of the rapidly growing set of Thermo Scientific tools and technologies aimed at biobanks and biorepositories reap the benefits of enhanced sample integrity, tracking and audit trail.
“Whether clients are building, expanding or sustaining their own in-house biorepositories or needing to outsource the storage of their samples, Thermo Fisher’s extensive product and service offering excels in all areas of the market penetration process by efficiently identifying challenges in the market and developing strategies, products and services to effectively address them,” said Frost & Sullivan senior research analyst Divyaa Ravishankar. “The company has always stayed ahead of the competition by continually delivering innovative biobanking products and venturing into the latest creative collaborative projects, such as virtual biobanks.”
With an increasing trend toward automation and more effective solutions for storage and sample handling, Thermo Fisher’s offerings meet the needs of both large- and small-scale organizations, from research organizations and CROs to large biotech and pharmaceutical facilities worldwide. The company offers sample handling and automation equipment, consumables, reagents and biobanking services, all managed seamlessly by the world-class data management capabilities of its informatics business.
“What sets Thermo Fisher Scientific apart is that we are able to help with all aspects of biospecimen preservation and storage through our comprehensive portfolio of biobanking solutions and deliver unmatched value to our customers,” said Dave Champagne, vice president and general manager of informatics for Thermo Fisher. “Thermo Fisher delivers the software, sample storage tubes, sample processing equipment, cold storage equipment, reagents, and off-site storage services that meet our customers’ toughest challenges. The Frost & Sullivan analysis confirms that we have the expertise to provide the full range of solutions for biobanks today. Being recognized by Frost & Sullivan for this prestigious award reaffirms that we have carried forward our leadership in the life sciences industry to the next level.”
In its analysis, Frost & Sullivan cited four main factors in recognizing Thermo Fisher’s achievements:
- The portfolio of biobanking products and services from Thermo Fisher addresses issues pertaining to sample location management, sample retrieval, preservation of sample integrity and accurate accessing of samples. The company’s storage and tracking portfolio comprises Thermo Scientific Nunc and Matrix 2D integral barcoded tubes of varying volumes, Thermo Scientific Capit-All and Handheld decappers, and VisionMate 2D readers. The cold storage offerings include solutions from +4°C refrigerators to -196 °C cryogenic freezers.
- The company’s biobanking LIMS offers superior data capture, integration and automation capabilities, eliminating transcription errors, providing biobanks with access to both raw and derived data, and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO). To complete the portfolio, Fisher BioServices provides biorepository services, sample collection kits and sample processing services, including aliquoting, DNA/RNA extraction and amplification, and other processing for genomic studies.
- Thermo Fisher continues to build on its global brand image by executing an aggressive growth strategy and is uniquely positioned in this market on multiple counts. For instance, the LIMS market segment for biobanking is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.9 percent from 2011 to 2018, with most growth generated from the revenue contribution by Thermo Fisher. Similarly, the growth of biobanking consumables is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5 percent from 2011 to 2018, with Thermo Fisher likely to grab further market share through the addition of tubes to the 2D product line and other products that universalize its racks.
- In terms of geographic market leadership, Thermo Fisher’s Informatics business has a strong presence in Europe, especially after acquiring customer projects from UK Biobank, Hunt Biobank and University of Lund, to name a few. In North America, the company is involved with academic and biotech biobank projects seeking a standardized solution across their consortium. Thermo Fisher is also supporting business models that involve virtual biobanks that want to centralize the information about the status of a particular disease. Thermo Scientific LIMS benefits its customers by creating a centralized and global view of inventory, Web access to data, chain of custody, online sample registration and tracking, and much more. Finally, Thermo Fisher is working closely with a number of long-term large pharmaceutical customers to revolutionize biobanking.
Frost & Sullivan also recognized Thermo Fisher for its ability to deliver superior Leadership in Customer Value. "Our research is focused on arrhythmia and other forms of cardiovascular disease, hence careful sample storage and processing is critical to our ability to achieve results," said Dr. Dong Meng, Lecturer, Key Laboratory of Arrhythmias, Ministry of Education, East Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, a Thermo Fisher biobanking customer.
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents the Company of the Year Award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in terms of growth strategy and implementation. The award recognizes a high degree of innovation with products and technologies, and the resulting leadership in terms of customer value and market penetration.
