In the 50th year of its presence in Europe, Shimadzu has received the NRW.Invest Award 2018, a prestigious award from North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s industrial heartland and most populated federal state. The company, with its European headquarters in Duisburg, received the award at the end of June from Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, the federal state’s Minister for Economics and Digitalization, and Petra Wassner, managing director of the NRW.Invest economic development agency. Additionally, the US online retailer Amazon, the British systems house Computacenter and the Chinese automotive supplier Yanfeng received awards.
The award is presented for outstanding investments and their clear commitment to the state of NRW. Shimadzu, a leading manufacturer of analytical instrumentation and medical technology, has its European headquarters in NRW. The company started in 1968 with five employees in Düsseldorf and today has grown to 230 employees in the federal state. More than 700 employees throughout Europe are supervised from Duisburg.
"We are very pleased with the award," says Jürgen Kwass, Managing Director Shimadzu Europe, "and we are very happy to call Duisburg home. The award further confirms our brand claim of 'Excellence in Science', which means providing our customers with the best possible solutions for their analyses and diagnoses. Our solutions are used in patient, consumer and environmental protection as well as in product safety." Shimadzu offers mobile and stationary X-ray and fluoroscopy systems for clinics and medical practices. The laboratory instruments are used in science to develop new methods, as well as in almost every manufacturing and food industry, mostly in quality control.
"International investors are essential for NRW. They are important employers, drivers of innovation and economic engines at the same time," explained State Minister Pinkwart. Petra Wassner emphasized that North Rhine-Westphalia, as a business location, is particularly interested in future technologies such as digitization and electromobility.
European Innovation Center develops technologies for tomorrow
Last year, Shimadzu opened its European Innovation Center in Duisburg. This innovation-oriented think tank combines academic and scientific know-how from universities with the company's high-quality analytical technologies. Shimadzu laboratory systems such as liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, materials testing and life sciences are involved in numerous research projects of leading European scientists. In addition, opinion leaders, thought leaders and experts contribute their expertise on groundbreaking topics from markets and science to the European Innovation Center in order to design new solutions for tomorrow and to take customer-oriented service to a new level. The work is coordinated from Duisburg with universities in Europe.
Merging analytical and medical technologies to fight cancer and dementia
"Merging analytical and medical technology methods breaks new grounds in diagnosis and treatment, especially of endocrine disorders, cancer and dementia," says Jürgen Kwass. "These include, for example, chromatography/mass spectrometry combined with angiography or near-infrared photoimmunotherapy."
