A great selling point
by J. Wilson Hershey, Ph.D., President
Celebrating our 50th Anniversary this year has all of us at Lancaster Labs looking back as well as craning our necks toward what lies ahead. One of our greatest selling strengths for the past five decades has been delivering a seamless service experience for our customers. Consequently, we’ve enjoyed unprecedented organic growth.
Growing a great company means employees will want to be part of it, customers will return, and yes, the company will be an attractive investment for potential new owners. As most of you know, Thermo Fisher Scientific agreed to sell Lancaster Labs to Belgiumheadquartered Eurofins Scientific this spring. The deal was finalized on April 4. As we are very excited about our new owners, Eurofins Scientific, we now have more reasons to celebrate during our 51st year. Here’s why. With about US$900 million annual revenues (over $1 billion with Lancaster Labs) and 9,000 employees across 150 sites in 30 countries, Eurofins Scientific is a leading international group of laboratories providing an unparalleled range of testing and support services to the pharmaceutical, food, environmental and consumer products industries and to governments.
A great world steward, Eurofins is committed to helping us support our customers’ endeavors for improving the human condition and planet, and they are dedicated to investing in and growing our operations. Therefore, we completely anticipate our customers will experience a seamless--even unnoticeable--ownership transition. Eurofins has announced that they do not anticipate any layoffs due to the acquisition.
With this acquisition, Eurofins becomes the global leader in this very stable and recurring business and significantly enlarges its North American footprint. It is a further expression of Eurofins’ commitment to serve the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with laboratory services of the highest quality and reliability. The acquisition reinforces the company’s leadership in terms of scale and quality of service on a wide range of laboratory activities for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries in North America, Europe and Asia.
Also, Lancaster Labs is one of the oldest, largest and most reputable environmental testing laboratories in the US. We have a solid reputation for excellence in service, quality and reliability and enjoy longstanding relationships with many Fortune 500 clients. Our strong position and reputation for top quality service in environmental testing in the US fit well with Eurofins’ strategy of being the global market leader with a focus on providing high quality services to large global corporations.
Here are some operating principles we stand for that will not change:
Quality--For every customer, we focus on providing excellent quality and service in all that we do. While many talk about quality, we demonstrate it – client by client, sample by sample. Viewing quality as fully meeting requirements, we make sure we understand exactly what those requirements are and then work as a partner to meet project needs. Our comprehensive management and quality systems enable us to complete the most complex projects accurately, responsively and in rigorous compliance with applicable regulations.
Innovation--Investing in new technology and capabilities expansion has been at the core of our business since 1961. With a 260,000 squarefoot state-of-the-art facility; 24/7 online data access; five service models, including Fee-For-Service, FTE, and our award-winning Professional Scientific Staffingsm we provide endless innovative and cost-saving laboratory service options.
Forging long-term customer partnerships--Listening, caring and adapting to project needs has always been essential to our success and our customers’. Many of our environmental and pharmaceutical customers have trusted us with their business for decades. We value this trust and are continually looking at ways to improve our customer bonds.
Reliability--The bottom line is, we care about our employees, and when they are happy, customers are delighted. Our team members take pride in going above and beyond, and so there’s never a shortage of volunteers to pitch in on weekends or holidays if a customer needs help. Setting the gold standard, our people get the job done, no matter what.
So for the next 50 years, we’ll continue to listen, enhance services, and enjoy helping our environmental, biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical customers make the world a healthier, greener place.
