Partnering Business
(OEM business)

Tecan not only provides end customers with automation solutions , but is also a leading developer and manufacturer of OEM instruments and components which partner companies sell under their own name. Tecan has been operating its OEM business since the Company was founded 40 years ago. The share of this business segment in the total sales of the Tecan Group was 44% in 2020.

The Partnering Business generated sales of CHF 322.1 million during the year under review (2019: CHF 275.7 million), which corresponds to a strong increase of 18.8% in local currencies and 16.8% in Swiss francs. 

Similar patterns to those in the Life Sciences Business were observed in the Partnering Business, with automation platforms, OEM components and disposable pipette tips to support COVID-19 testing being in high demand. By contrast, sales to customers exposed to other areas of in-vitro diagnostics were adversely impacted. Segment sales in the second half year increased by 30.0% in local currencies and 27.9% in Swiss francs.

Also in the Partnering Business, order entry increased at a substantially higher rate than sales. 

Operating profit in this segment (earnings before interest and taxes; EBIT) increased to CHF 59.1 million (2019: CHF 46.2 million), while the operating profit margin grew to 18.3% of sales (2019: 16.7%). 

In the Partnering Business, Tecan manages corporate customers, who are mainly diagnostics companies, centrally via Key Account Management. Employees in Europe, North America and Asia ensure the local management of existing customers and support the acquisition of new customers. There are direct sales employees in the individual national markets for the components business.

In the components business, Tecan supports instrument manufacturers with essential components where they want to develop an instrument themselves. By contrast, in the instruments business, Tecan takes over the development of the entire system, which it then manufactures under contract.

Tecan is the market leader in laboratory automation liquid handling components. The Company supplies laboratory instrument manufacturers with essential components such as precision pumps, valves, robotic arms and developer software. The renowned Tecan Cavro® components are used in systems that have a wide range of applications in life science research, diagnostics and numerous other industries. In customers’ product ranges, Tecan components generally remain an indispensable element over the entire life cycle of a device. For example, Tecan supplies manufacturers in the fast-growing area of next generation sequencing with Tecan Cavro® pumps for precision handling of fluids in different sequencers. During 2020, Tecan saw substantial demand for the Cavro ADP, one of the smallest and most sophisticated air pipettors on the market. 

In 2019, Tecan broadened the components portfolio through the acquisition of a long-term supplier of key parts, also vertically integrating the manufacturing of critical precision-machined parts. With two manufacturing sites, one in California (USA) and another in Ben Cat Town (Vietnam), Tecan is benefiting from the long-term supply of high-quality precision-machined parts and realizing cost savings by internalizing their supply.

Rapid market launch and low development costs are key for some OEM customers. In these cases, Tecan can adapt the products and platforms it develops for its own end customers to the specific needs of OEM customers. These adapted and standardized platforms are then distributed under the customers’ own brand name as system solutions that combine Tecan’s instruments with the partner’s own specific tests. Tecan has a broad range of modular platforms suited to applications with low to high sample throughput. Detection instruments from Tecan can also be modified or integrated into fully automated laboratory solutions for OEM customers. 

One example of this type of platform-based automation solution is one of the world’s most successful molecular diagnostic platforms. It is marketed by the partner as a system solution jointly with a wide range of different molecular diagnostic tests. Applications include, for example, therapy monitoring in HIV or hepatitis patients and detection of sexually transmitted infections. During 2020, this reliable instrument platform became a backbone of COVID-19 testing with new molecular diagnostic tests designed to detect SARS-CoV-2 approved for use on the system.

This platform-based approach is very popular in China, too. Many up-and-coming Chinese diagnostics companies are relying on the high-quality platforms of Tecan to automate locally developed tests, for example for molecular diagnostics. With Tecan platforms already registered with the Chinese FDA, the local diagnostics companies were able to run their newly developed and approved COVID-19 PCR tests on their existing platforms. 

When an OEM customer is looking for a specific product, designed and manufactured to a specific functionality and cost, a dedicated system development can be the most suitable answer. Dedicated systems are usually most appropriate for products with a longer life cycle and when the specific functionality and total cost-of-ownership are the key decision criteria. By choosing to partner with Tecan, OEM customers get access to the Company’s full range of technologies, modules and software solutions as well as its expertise in system integration and regulatory and quality-related processes. 

The corporate strategy pursues three vectors to ensure sustainable profitable growth. Tecan’s specific strategies allow it to drive forward customer projects with the respective business models of the two business segments.

Tecan has a broad base of OEM customers and is continuously increasing the number of development and supply agreements. The supply of new instruments generates additional sales stepwise, building on the established base. This enables Tecan to grow more rapidly than the market.

Dako Omnis, a platform for automated advanced staining which is used in tissue-based cancer diagnostics, is one example of a dedicated automation solution. The system automates both established processes in the diagnosis of abnormal cells: immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in-situ hybridization (ISH).

Dako Omnis produced for Dako – an Agilent Technologies company – offers full automation and fulfils the requirements of large diagnostic laboratories, hospitals and universities. It offers continuous loading with individual samples or batch loading, as well as the option of leaving the system to run overnight. It therefore sets new standards for what customers can expect from an automated platform with regard to flexibility, capacity, efficiency and traceability of samples. 

The ORTHO VISION Analyzer is a next-generation diagnostics instrument used for blood typing and to determine other important blood parameters. The device was developed by Tecan for Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, a market leader in immunohematology.

The ORTHO VISION Analyzer heralds a new era in transfusion medicine, with Responsive Automation. ORTHO VISION Max is another variant of the instrument for transfusion medicine laboratories and has a high sample throughput. Innovative monitoring technologies and control mechanisms give transfusion medicine professionals the ability to track every critical process step. In addition, laboratory personnel can react at any time to ever-changing conditions within the laboratory and unpredictable requirements. For example, particularly urgent cases can be rapidly processed by loading samples into the ORTHO VISION Analyzer on the fly, allowing for prioritization. 

In August 2020, Tecan has signed a new agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, to enable scaled-up COVID-19 testing globally. Since then, Thermo Fisher Scientific has introduced a new highly automated, real-time PCR solution designed to analyze up to 8,000 samples in a single day to meet increasing global demand for COVID-19 testing. The high-throughput system enables laboratories to significantly scale up their testing capacity to support global efforts to return communities back to work and school.

The Thermo Fisher Scientific Amplitude Solution includes instruments of the Tecan Fluent Laboratory Workstation family, the highest performance platform within Tecan’s extensive portfolio of liquid handling solutions for laboratory automation and the Introspect software, an instrument and consumables usage analysis and reporting software. 

As in the Life Sciences Business segment, there is also significant market potential for Tecan in the Partnering Business in China. Sales have increased disproportionately in this region in recent years. Local device manufacturers are increasingly integrating Tecan components in various areas of application to ensure the necessary instrument quality and reliability. Several instruments have already been granted marketing authorization, and are now being manufactured in larger quantities. Furthermore, Tecan is also increasingly supplying Chinese diagnostics companies with entire instruments. 

In the Partnering Business segment, Tecan mainly supplies diagnostics companies with instruments and components. Further pillars in the instrument market for life science research should therefore only be built up in the Life Sciences Business segment at present.

The third vector focuses on expanding recurring revenues. In the year under review, sales from services, spare parts and consumables increased significantly. As in the Life Sciences Business, the disposable pipette tip business saw a substantial increase in demand due to COVID-19 testing. As a result, overall recurring sales of services, consumables and reagents in the Partnering Business amounted to about 30% of total segment sales in 2020.

Support for OEM customers in the Partnering Business segment will not end once instrument development is finished. Tecan also offers OEM customers a range of services after the product is launched via its global service infrastructure. The Company can install instruments directly at the end customer’s location, provide a helpdesk facility, train the OEM customer’s service team and even handle the complete service portfolio for devices itself. In addition, Tecan maximizes instrument operation time by providing a global spare parts service. OEM customers in the diagnostics market may benefit from Tecan’s high-quality consumables such as certified pipette tips, which are an important component of a validated workflow solution.