Quality through collaboration

Marc Casper, Senior Vice President, Thermo Electron Corp., believes there are exciting times ahead for R&D and that collaborations will speed the development of the tools required. Tim Lloyd found out more.

Established in 1956, Thermo Electron has been supplying instruments to the life sciences industry through some of the biggest changes and evolutions across different markets around the world. Analysts will often compare the US with Europe in terms of productivity or R&D spend, but how does a supplier view tomorrow’s market?

‘‘Clearly this is still a global industry” says Casper, “with the major players supporting campuses both sides of the Atlantic. Europe has strong businesses – Novartis is a good example; making major investments not only in the USA but across the board. It’s a mixed story, but growth within the pharmaceutical industry is comparable between the US and Europe.”

Casper believes the horizon looks bright for R&D spend, although this varies tremendously between companies at present.

“The period of robust growth in R&D has slowed, but as more drugs come off patent, R&D will play a major role in refilling the pipelines.” In this context, Mass Spectrometry equipment has become a fast-growing pillar of Thermo’s business.

A company such as Thermo could never build business with complacency and luck. Like many others they have taken the initiative to collaborate with renowned partners – and possible customers – in order to develop a quality product.

“As we got more sophisticated, we realised we would have to work with high-end users,” says Casper. Besides collaborating with major pharmaceutical companies and other customers, a recent example is Thermo’s work with the Massachusetts General Hospital in the USA. Here, the two parties have established the Biomarker Research Initiatives in Mass Spectrometry (BRIMS) centre, partnering investigators from the hospital with technologists from Thermo. The centre’s brief is to develop mass spectrometry-based technologies dedicated to the discovery of protein biomarkers.

“Massachusetts General benefit from our input, and we benefit from their insight.” And Casper is keen to point out that all this work is not just for the benefit of existing collaborators and the major players: there are businesses of all different shapes and sizes to be catered for. “We anticipate strong growth amongst the small and middle-sized companies… with continued activity as the number of mergers and acquisitions increases.”

About the author – Marc Casper

Marc Casper joined Thermo Electron in December 2001 as President of Thermo Electron’s Life and Laboratory Sciences segment. He was promoted to Senior Vice President, Thermo Electron and President, Life and Laboratory Sciences Group in December of 2003. In March of 2005, Marc’s role was expanded to include overseeing the two Measurement and Control divisions in addition to the four Life and Laboratory Sciences divisions.

Prior to joining Thermo, Marc served as President, CEO and Director of Kendro Laboratory Products. Marc started his career at Bain & Company as a strategy consultant and later joined Bain Capital. At Bain Capital, he served as a member of a portfolio management group, overseeing business development, strategy, and business integration in select companies owned by Bain. In 1997, Marc joined Dade Behring Inc., a $1.3 billion global manufacturer and marketer of products and systems serving the clinical diagnostics market, as Executive Vice President for Europe, Asia, and Intercontinental. He was promoted to President-Americas in 1999, with responsibility for a $700 million business. Marc is a Director of the Advisory Board Company (Nasdq: ABCO).