Background From January 11 to January 13, 2011, the 29th Annual JPMorgan Chase Medical Sanitation Conference was held in San Francisco, USA. The meeting attracted about 300 health care related companies. At the meeting, the presidents and CEOs of major companies respectively explained to investors their new year's development plans and new products for listing. At this year's conference, representatives from Thermo Fisher, Waters, Agilent, Danaher, Bruker and Bio-rad also looked forward to the development strategies of their respective companies in 2011.

Waters said at the first day of the JPMorgan Chase Healthcare Conference that after focusing on the high-end mass spectrometry market, the company will turn its attention to the lower-end mass spectrometer market in the coming year.

Waters Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Douglas Berthiaume

According to Waters President and Chief Executive Officer Douglas Berthiaume, “Lower-end mass spectrometry instruments have been relatively low-growth in recent years, but we have foreseen that such mass spectrometers will have more robust growth.” He also said that at present, Waters does not have enough new technology to provide researchers with a reason to purchase such instruments from the company.

However, in 2011 or later, Waters will launch single quadrupole mass spectrometry systems and other systems based on quadrupole technology; for Q-TOF technology, Waters’ strategy has been to pursue high-end in recent years. Mass spec users, Synapt launched in 2006 and Xevo launched in 2008. Future development focuses on desktop systems.

Based on this strategy, Waters Corporation announced on Monday (January 10, 2011) the launch of the Xevo G2 time-of-flight bench-top mass spectrometer, a "big brother" for Xevo's entire range of products, said Douglas Berthiaume.

Douglas Berthiaume also referred to the "US Food Safety Modernization Act." Congress passed the bill before Christmas to ensure that food produced in the United States and imported from elsewhere is safe. Last week, President Obama signed as formal legislation.

Douglas Berthiaume said that Waters is a pioneer in food safety testing and that this means an increase in revenue for Waters. He added that Waters has been "overwhelmed" by the food processing industry for compliance requirements.

Finally, regarding the impact of Thermo Fisher's acquisition of Diane on Waters, Douglas Berthiaume said that in the short term, “it is hard to imagine that the acquisition will change the market a lot. Thermo Fisher does not hide its attempts. In the area of ​​liquid chromatography, it has opened up new space, but Daian only has a 'proper place' in the liquid chromatography market,” said Douglas Berthiaume.