Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (SSI), the American arm of Japan-based Shimadzu, has opened a new research and development (R&D) centre in the US.
The centre is spread across three locations – a laboratory at SSI’s headquarters in Columbia, Maryland, an East Coast lab near Boston, Massachusetts, and a West Coast lab near San Francisco, California.
The East Coast and West Coast labs will primarily investigate the needs of pharmaceutical companies and will jointly evaluate prototypes developed based on those needs.
Both Boston and San Francisco are biopharmaceutical hubs, making them good locations for Shimadzu’s operations.
The third laboratory, in Maryland, will be used to evaluate prototypes and undertake agile development in cooperation with the analytical and measuring instruments division of Shimadzu. The facility will also provide installation of prototypes and new products and conduct joint research with customers.
The new R&D operations will enable Shimadzu to understand customer needs better and accelerate product and technology development. They will expand on the capabilities of the company’s existing US innovation centre (established in 2015) and increase Shimadzu’s presence in the North American market.
Shimadzu plans to use its SSI base to expand its business to pharmaceutical companies, increasing sales in North America from Y51bn ($374m) in fiscal 2022 to more than Y70bn ($457m) in fiscal 2025.
This is Shimadzu’s second such investment in recent times. In March, it opened a new regional hub in Dubai, UAE.
Headquartered in Kyoto, Shimadzu manufactures precision instruments, measuring instruments and medical equipment. Its American subsidiary was founded in 1975 and serves customers in multiple markets, including pharmaceutical, clinical, energy and forensics.
