Vision BioSystems: 'We've arrived'

Melbourne instrument manufacturer Vision BioSystems is claiming early international success for its new Bond immunochemistry and in situ hybridisation staining system.

Managing director Michael Ohanessian said the instrument had been well received at two recent international trade shows. "The response we've had is terrific, we've been the major story at both shows," he said. "We've arrived in a big way."

The launch of the new instrument marks a turning-point in the company's direction, from being a manufacturer of instruments re-badged by other brands, to manufacturing and marketing its own brand of clinical laboratory instrumentation.

The Bond system was recently showcased at the National Society of Histotechnology conference in California as well as at the International Anatomical Pathology meeting in Amsterdam. With two different audiences encompassing both clinical laboratory scientists and pathologists, Ohanessian claimed "all-round interest" was shown in the new instrument.

According to Ohanessian, the Bond system was only the second on the market to fully automate staining procedures for cancer detection, with most systems requiring a number of steps to be performed manually. "We've leapfrogged the current state-of-the-art," he said.

The instrument system also incorporates reagents from Novocastra, a company Ohanessian described as one of the best for antibody reagents. Vision Systems, the parent company of Vision BioSystems, acquired Novocastra in late June.

Ohanessian said that the integration of Novocastra into the Vision Systems group had gone extremely well, with no staff turnover and a smooth changeover of management.

"The assumptions we made about synergy before acquisition have proven very valid, even conservative," he said. The use of Novocastra reagents in the Bond system will provide a recurring revenue flow from the instruments after sale, he said.

Vision Bio is also to launch a unique dual retort tissue processor, which Ohanessian claimed was a radical innovation that would dramatically alter the time required for tissue processing.

the company also expects to benefit in the next few years from a major manufacturing contract with a US-based healthcare diagnostics company. The company will manufacture an instrument developed by Invetech, another Vision Systems subsidiary, with revenues expected to be $2 million this financial year, increasing to $10-12 million in 2003-04 and $20 million in 2004-05.

Ohanessian said that the combination of the new product launches and the manufacturing contract heralded "explosive growth" for the company over the next 12-18 months. "There are very exciting times ahead of us," he said.