For those who might think that a sale of diagnostics will bring good things because things can't possibly get much worse, I refer you to anyone who has been in Tarrytown for a long time.
Once upon a time, Tarrytown was the king of clinical chemistry, owning around 70% of the market. The company was run by the Whiteheads and was called Technicon. In 1980, the bubble burst. Jack Whitehead wanted out and wanted something new for the last part of his life and sold Technicon to Revlon. And things got worse. It was under Revlon, that Technicon beat their heads against the wall to try to make Chem 1 a success. They never did.
In 1987 or so, Revlon sold out to Cooper. And things go worse. The Cooper wheelers and dealers made arrangements with two Japanese instrument manufacturers as a quick way to get new instruments that could use existing Technicon reagents. Neither system worked well enough to make it as a commercial success.
In 1989, Cooper sold out to Bayer. And things got a lot worse. Bayer refused to support the two Japanese systems (DAX and AXON) and they soon died in the field. Bayer then went on to show their uber-arrogance by creating the Advia IMS (I'm-a-Mess) black hole that sucked up roughly a billion dollars in R&D investment for a system that never worked.
Then Bayer sold out to Siemens. And, believe it or not, things got even worse. IMS died rapidly in the field, Vista is diagnostics tribute to Dennis Weaver (the supporting character, Chester, on Gunsmoke) as it continues to limp along. The big attempt to extend the Centaur product line failed before it got to the field. Bottom line during Siemens tenure: no new systems and virtually no new assays.
And you think it can't get worse? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ... Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them." -- George Santayana
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