Singapore: Life Technologies has established a Global Instrument Center of Excellence in Singapore, to address strong customer demand around the world.

The center will design and manufacture Life Technologies products, including next-generation sequencing and molecular diagnostic instruments for customers within the region and outside Asia Pacific. It is Life Technologies' only internal instrument manufacturing facility outside the US.

Life Technologies provides customers with systems, consumables and services that enable researchers to accelerate scientific and medical advancements. Asia Pacific is one of the company's key growth drivers. Asia Pacific sales, excluding Japan, grew over nine percent in 2011. Life Technology's volume of items shipped per day in the region has increased fourfold, with dramatically improved order fulfillment time that is up to 50 percent faster in most cases.

"The life science instrumentation industry in Singapore has been expanding rapidly due to the strong market growth in Asia," said Mr Kevin Lai, director of the Biomedical Sciences Group for the Singapore Economic Development Board. "This new Global Instrument Center of Excellence is an example of how leading life science instrumentation companies are increasingly looking to Singapore as an integrated location for complex analytical instrument manufacturing, research and development of next generation platforms, and regional headquarters for Asia."

"The scientific community in Asia Pacific is growing at a rapid rate," said Mr Mark Smedley, president of Asia Pacific and Japan for Life Technologies. "By establishing the Instrument Center of Excellence in Singapore, we are providing our global customers innovative technologies more efficiently, while helping them advance their research even faster."

The center is a testament to Life Technologies' long standing commitment and investment in the scientific research and development taking place in Asia Pacific. Last year, the company opened a regional distribution center in Singapore's Tuas Biomedical Park to enhance the quality, availability and timely delivery of its product lines to its thriving customer base in Asia.