Significant business expansion in the Life Sciences sector has mirrored the business growth associated with Gooch & Housego’s targeting of the Aerospace and Defence sector.
Acquisitions made in 2006 and 2007 established a presence and provided critical technology, while subsequent investment in research and development has provided first tier product offerings. In the Life Sciences sector products tend to be more complex and development timescales longer than in other sectors and regulatory requirements are demanding while approvals are time consuming.
In 2010, after several years spent gradually building trust and confidence with a number of key customers, Gooch & Housego enjoyed significant increases in business levels as these relationships grew in strength.
Products have been developed for applications ranging from laser surgery to diagnostics, and the techniques utilised vary from the well-established to those resulting from cutting-edge research.
The Gooch & Housego strategy in this sector is to move up the value-chain from low-level components to more complex integrated modules and eventually complete instruments. The growth in Life Sciences revenues in 2010 was driven by several factors including a strong market recovery, growing acceptance of laser surgical techniques and optical diagnostics reaching "high street" applications (such as optical coherence tomography [OCT] for retinal imaging).
Other market sectors: