1980 headquarters m nnedorf z rich switzerland number of locations 17 2014 key people dr. david martyr ceo dr. rudolf eugster cfo products laboratory and life science equipment number of employees over 1 500 divisions life sciences diagnostics partnering subsidiaries ibl international sias slogan solutions for laboratories worldwide website http www.tecan.com footnotes references tecan s headquarters in switzerland tecan group ltd. is a swiss company providing laboratory instruments and solutions in biopharmaceuticals forensics and clinical diagnostics for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies university research departments and diagnostic laboratories . the company focuses on the development production and distribution of automation and detection products for life science laboratories . founded in switzerland in 1980 the company has over 1200 employees owns production and research and development sites in both north america and europe and maintains a sales and service network in 52 countries . in 2014 tecan generated sales of chf 400 million usd 437 million ; eur 331 million . registered shares of tecan group are traded on the six swiss exchange tecn ; isin ch0012100191 . history edit engineers heinz abplanalp heini maurer heinz m ckli and gallus blater founded tecan on march 18 1980 with the aim of developing measuring analysis and laboratory automation devices . the first company office was in the home of the ceo heinz abplanalp in hombrechtikon switzerland . tecan soon also started to produce instruments for laboratory automation and environmental analysis . the first instruments were made in renovated barns apartments and warehouses spread across the whole village of hombrechtikon . in 1982 the company opened tecan us in chapel hill north carolina for sales and marketing in north america and tecan production corp. to manufacture for the us marketplace . two years later 48 % of the share capital was taken over by the finance company zelux . in 1985 tecan entered the market with the tecan sampler 500 series the first process controlled and fully automated pipetting devices . other products included ph electrodes the tecan plant sap extractor 400 and the tecan rsp 5052 . in 1986 tecan was nominated as the swiss company of the year by zurich industrialists branco weiss and by publishers jean frey and ringier and awarded the branco weiss prize for innovative companies tv broadcast . in the same year tecan holding ag was founded and tecan asia opened in singapore . with 80 employees tecan achieved a turnohares in the company . tecan also acquired ten companies including oem liquid handling component manufacturer cavro scientific instruments in the usa today tecan systems inc. . in 1988 tecan acquired slt laborinstrumente gmbh in gr dig near salzburg austria today tecan austria . at the end of the year tecan holding included 29 companies . by the middle of 1989 tecan was in financial difficulties and trading in shares was temporarily suspended . in 1990 under ceo hans widmer tecan sold a large proportion of its daughter companies . concentrating on its laboratory automation business the company only retained its liquid hanlding robotics production sites in switzerland the usa and austria together with sales centers in germany the uk and the usa . the company returned to profit following this consolidation . later in 1990 founder heinz abplanalp left the company and peter bollmann become ceo . a year later the other founding members also left the company . in 1993 gottlieb knoch took over the majority of tecan shares as an industrial investor . he became president of the board and ceo of the tecan group . in 1994 all production sites were certified to iso 9001 . in 1995 the genesis series of laboratory automation workstations was launched based on new technology electronics communication protocols new storage systems etc. . in 1997 the life sciences company perkin elmer acquired the package of shares from gottlieb knoch and thus the majority of voting shares . in 1998 a collaboration followed with abbott laboratories in marketing genesis fe 500 workcell . in 1999 emile sutcliffe became ceo and perkin elmer sold its tecan shares on the open market . tecan was restructured and went public for the second time listed in the main sector of the swx swiss exchange . in 2001 tecan moved to new headquarters in m nnedorf . within two years more than 5 000 genesis platforms were sold . in 2003 the launch of the new freedom evo platform took place and aitor galdos became ceo leaving the company at the end of 2004 . in 2005 tecan celebrated its 25th anniversary . thomas bachmann became ceo . tecan took over remp a company based in oberdiessbach switzerland supplying automated laboratory and logistics systems in the life sciences sector . in 2006 tecan austria received two awards from the federal state salzburg chamber of commerce . the first award cited tecan austria for being the most innovative company in industry with its infinite series of multimode readers . the second award was the federal state winner of the innovation prize for the state of austria . 1 in 2007 more than 1 000 freedom evo platforms sold . in 2010 tecan celebrated its 30th anniversary . in 2016 the company announced it would acquire speware a company that offers sample preparation solutions to the laboratory by combining chemistry consumables with automation for 50 million cash and potential earn out payments up to 10 million . 2 references edit tecan wins awards for innovation . chemeurope.com . retrieved 2009 11 26 . http www.genengnews.com gen news highlights tecan agrees to acquire speware 81253157 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title tecan & oldid 737418583 categories technology companies of switzerlandhidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 2 september 2016 at 17 12 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view