Olympus Opens Global Research and Development Centre in Munich

Olympus, along with high-level figures from politics, economics and research, recently opened a new global Research and Development Centre for Life Science in Munich. Olympus will invest around €15m in this project and by 2009 it is expected that 450 people will be employed there. 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.”

Aim: Individualised disease prevention

Dr Köhler continued, “At the same time we will be in a position to fulfil our customers' requirements in the future by offering exceptionally reliable products and services. Olympus sees itself as a driving force for tomorrow's medicine and clinics. Our objective, in addition to early detection, is individualised disease prevention, analysis and prevention along with follow-up treatment."

Research, Development and Production Competence centre

The new Olympus Research and Development facility in Munich 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 via an ultramodern centre. The close teamwork of highly-qualified personnel from a myriad of specialty fields, creates a unique, knowledge pool that benefits all product lines.

For years Olympus has been very successful in the European life sciences sector. Over the past four years, growth rates have been averaging 15.8% in microscopy and 10.4% in diagnostics, placing Olympus as one of the leading companies in both the microscopy and clinical chemistry markets. Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the President of the Olympus Corporation explained, "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 grown in this business segment."