Festo opens new development centre for life sciences in Boston

In medical technology, Festo develops products and subsystems for medical devices and laboratory automation.

Festo has expanded its presence in the worldwide life-sciences market, with the opening of a new development centre for innovations in laboratory automation. As North America is at the forefront of life sciences, the company has chosen Boston as the location for its Technical Engineering Center (TEC).

TEC Boston is where Festo plans to team up with esteemed laboratory and medical equipment manufacturers, some based in the area, to develop more advanced products.

High throughput and accurate results

At TEC Boston, Festo and its partners will focus on developing components and systems for performing liquid-handling functions like pipetting, aspiration, and dispensing. These will respond to market demand for process technology that offers high throughput, reproducible and accurate results, and reasonable costs.

As a family-owned global leader in automation, Festo is already using its high level of expertise in factory and process automation in this fast-growing area. Its recently launched EHMD rotary gripper module is a unique, compact device that can grip and rotate sample vials; it can also open sample vials as small as 15 millilitres in volume with little effort. Another recent innovation is the VTOE dispense head, recommended primarily for liquid handling. The VTOE meets the strictest requirements for sample analysis, such as high precision even with small dosing volumes, as well as high levels of reliability and reproducibility. This dispense head can handle a broad variety of applications with as many as eight independent dosing channels.

Festo is not new to the field of medical equipment and laboratory automation. The company entered this area in 2004, and the market has seen annual double-digit growth since then – leading Festo to establish a separate division to accommodate further expansion. Laboratory automation focuses on developing intelligent, tested products and subsystems for automating liquid and sample handling. In medical technology, Festo creates subsystems and products for medical devices, with a focus on efficient regulation and control of process and medical gases.

TEC Boston first opened its doors on Oct. 10. This centre is sure to make Festo an even more important player in this industry.

For more information, contact Festo.

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