PerkinElmer

PerkinElmer was founded in 1937[2] by Richard Perkin and Charles Elmer as an optical design and consulting company. In 1944, Perkin-Elmer entered the analytical-instruments business, and in the early 1990s, partnered with Cetus Corporation (and later Hoffmann-La Roche) to pioneer the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) equipment industry. Analytical-instruments business was also operated from 1954 to 2001 in Germany, by the Bodenseewerk Perkin-Elmer GmbH located in Überlingen at Lake Constance, and England (Perkin Elmer Ltd) at Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire.

EG&G was founded in 1931 by two MIT professors, Harold Edgerton and Kenneth Germeshausen in a Boston garage. The company was originally incorporated in 1947 as EG&G.

Perkin-Elmer was involved in computer manufacture for a time. The Perkin-Elmer Computer Systems Division was formed through the purchase of Interdata, Inc., an independent computer manufacturer, in 1973–74 for some $63 million.[3][4] This merger made Perkin-Elmer's annual sales rise to over $200 million.[4] This was also known as Perkin-Elmer's Data Systems Group.[5]

The 32-bit computers were very similar to an IBM System/370, but ran the OS/32MT operating system.

The Wollongong Group provided the commercial version of the Unix port to the Interdata 7/32 hardware, known as Edition 7 Unix. The port was originally done by the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, and was the first UNIX port to hardware other than the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP family. By 1982 the Wollongong Group Edition 7 Unix and Programmer's Workbench (PWB) were available on models such as the Perkin-Elmer 3210 and 3240 minicomputers.

In 1985, the computing division of Perkin-Elmer was spun off as Concurrent Computer Corporation.[6]

Modern PerkinElmer traces its history back to a merger between divisions of what had been two S&P 500 companies, EG&G Inc. (formerly NYSE: EGG) of Wellesley, Massachusetts and Perkin-Elmer (formerly NYSE: PKN) of Norwalk, Connecticut. On May 28, 1999, the non-government side of EG&G Inc. purchased the Analytical Instruments Division of Perkin-Elmer, its traditional business segment, for US$425 million, also assuming the Perkin-Elmer name and forming the new PerkinElmer company, with new officers and a new Board of Directors.[7][8] At the time, EG&G made products for diverse industries including automotive, medical, aerospace and photography.[8]

The old Perkin-Elmer Board of Directors and Officers remained at that reorganized company under its new name, PE Corporation. It had been the Life Sciences division of Perkin-Elmer, and its two component tracking stock business groups, Celera Genomics (NYSE: CRA) and PE Biosystems (formerly NYSE: PEB), were centrally involved in the highest profile biotechnology events of the decade, the intense race against the Human Genome Project consortium, which then resulted in the genomics segment of the technology bubble. Perkin-Elmer purchased the Boston operations of NEN Life Sciences in 2001.

PerkinElmer headquarters in Waltham

In 1992, the company merged with Applied Biosystems. In 1997 they merged with PerSeptive Biosystems. On July 14, 1999, the new analytical instruments maker PerkinElmer cut 350 jobs, or 12%, in its cost reduction reorganization.[8] In 2006, PerkinElmer sold off the Fluid Sciences division for approximately $400M; the aim of the selloff was to increase the strategic focus on its higher-growth health sciences and photonic markets. Following on from the selloff, a number of small businesses were acquired, including Spectral Genomics, Improvision, Evotec-Technologies, Euroscreen, ViaCell, and Avalon Instruments. The brand "Evotec-Technologies" remains the property of Evotec, the former owner company. PerkinElmer had a license to use the brand till the end of year 2007.

PerkinElmer has continued to expand its interest in medicine with the acquisitions of clinical laboratories, In July 2006, it acquired NTD Labs located on Long Island, New York. The laboratory specializes in prenatal screening during the first trimester of pregnancy. In 2007, it purchased ViaCell, Inc. for $300 million,[9] which included its offices in Boston and cord blood storage facility in Kentucky near Cincinnati. The company was renamed ViaCord.

In March 2008, PerkinElmer purchased Pediatrix Screening (formerly Neo Gen Screening), a laboratory located in Bridgeville, PA specializing in screening newborns for various inborn errors of metabolism such as phenylketonuria, hypothyroidism, and sickle-cell disease. It renamed the laboratory PerkinElmer Genetics, Inc.

In May 2011, PerkinElmer announced the signature of an agreement to acquire CambridgeSoft, and the successful acquisition of ArtusLabs.[10]

In September 2011, PerkinElmer bought Caliper Life Sciences for $600 million.[11]

In January 2017, the company announced it would acquire the Indian in vitro diagnostic company, Tulip Diagnostics.[12] In May of the same year the company acquired Euroimmun Medical Laboratory Diagnostics for approximately $1.3 billion.[13]

In 2018, the company acquired Australian biotech company, RHS Ltd., Chinese manufacturer of analytical instruments, Shanghai Spectrum Instruments Co. Ltd., and US company Cisbio Bioassays, which specializes in diagnostics and drug discovery solutions.[14][15][16]

Polishing of Hubble's primary mirror begins at Perkin-Elmer corporation, Danbury, Connecticut, May 1979. The engineer pictured is Dr. Martin Yellin, an optical engineer working for Perkin-Elmer on the project.

Perkin-Elmer's Danbury Optical System unit[17] was commissioned to build the optical components of the Hubble Space Telescope. The construction of the main mirror began in 1979 and completed in 1981. The polishing process ran over budget and behind schedule, producing significant friction with NASA. Due to a miscalibrated null corrector, the primary mirror was also found to have a significant spherical aberration after reaching orbit on STS-31. Perkin-Elmer's own calculations and measurements revealed the primary mirror's surface discrepancies, but the company chose to withhold that data from NASA. A NASA investigation heavily criticized Perkin-Elmer for management failings, disregarding written quality guidelines, and ignoring test data that revealed the miscalibration.[18] Corrective optics were installed on the telescope during the first Hubble service and repair mission STS-61. The correction, Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, was applied entirely to the secondary mirror and replaced existing instrumentation; the aberration of the primary mirror remained uncorrected.

The company agreed to pay US $15 million, essentially forgoing its fees in polishing the mirror, to avoid a threatened liability lawsuit under the False Claims Act by the Federal government. Hughes Aircraft which acquired the Danbury Optical System unit one month after the launch of the telescope, paid $10 million. The Justice Department asserted that the companies should have known about the flawed testing. Trade group Aerospace Industries Association protested when concerns were raised in the aerospace industry that aerospace companies might be held liable for failed equipment.[17]

Perkin-Elmer built the optical systems for the KH-9 Hexagon series of spy satellites at a facility in Danbury, Connecticut.[19]

In the 1970s, an aerial panoramic camera lens was capable of recording the entire state of Pennsylvania in two flyovers, with resolution that enabled one to count the autos on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.[20]