Tecan confident about prospects in 2001

Switzerland's Tecan, which recently posted turnover of 273.5 millionSwiss francs ($159.5 million) for 2000, a jump of 41.7% (Marketletter March 12), has said that it expects sales growth of at least 30% in local currencies. The company issued a statement about its sales outlook in the wake of other life sciences firms lowering their revenue expectations. However, Tecan says such predictions are based on "specific companies, differing business models and particular segments of the market [and] appear insufficient to make extrapolations to the industry as a whole."

Emile Sutcliffe, Tecan's chief executive, said that the company has "no evidence of any change in our growth rate or in the demand for our products." He argued that the Zurich-based group has "a good position in our high-growth markets of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery and diagnostics" and can meet the "considerable needs of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries in Europe and North America."