Azenta, Inc. is a global provider of biological and chemical compound sample exploration and management solutions for the life sciences industry.
The company supports its customers from research and clinical development to commercialization with the company’s sample management, automated storage, vaccine cold storage and transport, as well as genomic services expertise to help the company’s customers bring impactful and breakthrough therapies to market faster. The company understands the import...
Azenta, Inc. is a global provider of biological and chemical compound sample exploration and management solutions for the life sciences industry.
The company supports its customers from research and clinical development to commercialization with the company’s sample management, automated storage, vaccine cold storage and transport, as well as genomic services expertise to help the company’s customers bring impactful and breakthrough therapies to market faster. The company understands the importance of sample integrity and offer a broad portfolio of products and services supporting customers at every stage of the life cycle of samples, including procurement, automated storage systems, genomic services and a multitude of sample consumables, informatics and data software, along with sample repository services. The company’s expertise, global footprint, and leadership positions enable the company to be a trusted global partner to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and life sciences research institutions. The company has sales in approximately 125 countries. The company has operations in North America, Asia, and Europe.
The company’s portfolio includes product and service offerings developed by the company internally, as well as obtained through acquisitions, designed to provide comprehensive capabilities to the company’s customers, addressing their needs in sample exploration and management, automated storage, multiomics, and cold chain solutions. The company continues to develop new product and service offerings and enhance existing and acquired offerings through the expertise of the company’s research and development resources. The company’s acquisition, investment, and integration approach has allowed the company to accelerate internal development and significantly accelerate time to market for the company’s life sciences solutions.
Life Sciences Market
The company’s businesses serve a broad range of end markets within the life sciences industry to help the company’s customers advance the development of therapies to improve people’s lives and cure diseases.
The company has approximately 14,000 customers globally and the company is well positioned to expand its customer base. The company serves top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the most advanced research hospitals performing clinical research and therapy development, as well as some of the newest and leading-edge start-ups in the biotech space. In addition, the company serves academic and government institutions.
Segments
The company’s operating and reportable segments consist of the following:
Sample Management Solutions. The Sample Management Solutions business resources operate as a single business unit offering end-to-end sample management products and services, including Sample Repository Services, or SRS, and Core Products (Automated Stores, Cryogenic Systems, Automated Sample Tube, Consumables and Instruments and Controlled Rate Thawing Devices).
Multiomics. The Multiomics business resources operate as a single business unit offering genomic and other sample analysis services, including gene sequencing, synthesis editing and related services.
B Medical Systems. The B Medical Systems business resources operate as a single business unit focused on the manufacturing and distribution of temperature-controlled storage and transportation solutions in international markets to governments, health institutions, and non-government organizations.
Sample Management Solutions
Within the company’s Sample Management Solutions segment, the company operates as a single business unit offering end-to-end sample management products and services, including SRS and Core Products (Automated Stores, Cryogenic Systems, Automated Sample Tube, Consumables and Instruments, and Controlled Rate Thawing Devices). This portfolio provides customers with a high level of sample quality, security, availability, intelligence and integrity throughout the lifecycle of samples, providing customers with complete end-to-end ‘cold chain of custody’ capabilities. The company also offers expert-level consultation services to its clients throughout their experimental design and implementation processes. On July 1, 2022, the company acquired Barkey Holding GmbH and its subsidiaries, or ‘Barkey’, a leading provider of controlled rate thawing devices for customers in the medical, biotech and pharmaceutical industries. The acquisition added innovative products and capabilities that extend the company’s extensive cold chain of condition portfolio of products and services, while also expanding the company’s customer reach in the fast-growing CGT space.
SRS – The company’s SRS services include a complete range of services consisting of on-site and off-site sample storage, cold chain logistics, sample transport and collection relocation, bio-processing solutions (inclusive of sample preparation, and laboratory-based sample analysis), disaster recovery and business continuity, as well as project management and consulting. The company’s informatics solutions provide sample intelligence software solutions, and support laboratory workflow scheduling for life science tools and instrument work cells, sample inventory and logistics, environmental and temperature monitoring, clinical trial and consent management, and planning, data management, virtualization, and visualization of sample collections. The company offers enhanced on-site and off-site management of biological sample inventories and integration solutions to the company’s customers for their increasingly distributed workflows.
Automated Stores – The company’s automated stores product includes stand-alone systems that store over 20 million samples in temperature ranges from ambient to -80°C to cryogenic storage at -190°C. The company’s automated stores have a unique design that allows controlled temperature storage down to -80°C with the industry’s highest throughput of sample retrieval. The company’s automated stores provide high throughput capability and optimized storage of multi-format tubes and plates while maintaining consistent temperature profiles across stored samples. The company also offers a portfolio of services designed to optimize the productivity of the company’s storage offerings.
Cryogenic Systems – The company’s cryogenic systems product provides cryogenic storage ranging from high efficiency LN2 vapor-based cryogenic freezers to fully automated systems that preserve sample integrity and chain of custody, as well as the storage materials needed to keep samples safe during every step of the cold chain. The company’s cryogenic systems provide long-term cryogenic storage with accurate record-keeping and dependable temperature control, even during transport. The systems combine well-documented sample protection and comprehensive inventory management with superior user experience and enable the company’s customers to plan a scalable cryogenic infrastructure to maintain quality and documentation.
Automated Sample Tube - The company’s automated sample tube product offerings include a range of automation-friendly storage tubes with coding options such as 2D-coded, dual-coded, and tri-coded, with either external or internal threading, and instruments for faster reading, capping, and de-capping.
Consumables and Instruments - The company’s consumables and instruments products include a complete range of consumables, including multiple formats of racks, tubes, caps, plates and foils, which are used for storage and handling of samples in ambient to ultra-cold storage environments. A comprehensive range of instruments used for labeling, bar coding, capping, de-capping, auditing, sealing, peeling, and piercing tubes and plates complement the company’s consumables. The company’s offerings include a range of products aimed at the genomic sample preparation and services market for polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, and sequencing, imaging, plate sealing, liquid handling, and sample processing.
Controlled Rate Thawing Devices – The company’s controlled rate thawing devices include a range of products for automated thawing of plasma, blood and stem cells, as well as in CGT applications. The company’s products are used for controlled rate thawing of cryopreserved samples and therapies, and are used in research and development, clinical trials, good manufacturing practices and in the hospital setting.
Multiomics
Within the company’s Multiomics segment, its genomic services business advances research and development activities by providing gene sequencing, synthesis, editing and related services. The company offers a comprehensive, global portfolio that has both broad appeal in the life sciences industry and enables customers to select the best solution for their research and development challenges. This portfolio also offers unique solutions for key markets such as CGT, antibody development and biomarker discovery by addressing genomic complexity and throughput challenges.
Genomic Services – The company’s genomic services business includes gene sequencing and gene synthesis services, enabling the expanding research and development of gene-based healthcare discoveries and therapies. These service offerings include Next-Generation sequencing, or NGS, Sanger sequencing, gene synthesis, bioinformatics, and good laboratory practices, or GLP, regulatory services. The sequencing services are available with both standard and custom services for extraction, library preparation, sequencing, and bioinformatics, supported by Ph.D.-level project managers providing consultation services, updates, and post-delivery assistance. The company’s gene synthesis offerings provide production of a wide range of sequence lengths and structural complexity, DNA cloning, gene fragment synthesis, oligo synthesis, and plasmid purification.
B Medical Systems
Within the company’s B Medical Systems segment, the company provides temperature-controlled storage and transportation solutions that complement the company’s cold chain capabilities, adding differentiated solutions for reliable and traceable transport of temperature-sensitive specimens worldwide. The company offers end-to-end cold chain of custody capabilities for vaccines, blood components, and laboratory specimens through the company’s portfolio of cold chain transport solutions, plasma freezers, contact shock freezers, ultra-low freezers, and real-time sample monitoring and location tracking solutions.
Temperature-controlled Storage and Transportation Solutions – The company’s temperature-controlled storage and transportation solutions enable the delivery of life-saving treatments to more than 150 countries worldwide. These products complement the company’s cold-chain capabilities, adding differentiated solutions for reliable and traceable transport of temperature-sensitive samples.
Sales, Marketing and Customer Support
Most of the company’s sales are completed through its direct sales force, particularly the company’s store systems, storage services, and genomic services. The company supplements the sale of consumables and instruments with distributors that reach a broad range of customers. In regions with emerging life sciences industries, the company leverages local distributors to assist with the sales process for Automated Stores, and utilize the capabilities of international procurement agencies, including UNICEF.
The sales process for the company’s SRS and larger Automated Store systems takes months to complete and may involve a team from sales, marketing, and engineering. Sales of genomic services are generally generated with on-line orders from the customer laboratory and delivered to and from the company’s customers using a courier service, with the simplest of genomics and synthesis requests completed in less than 24 hours and more complex projects within weeks.
Participation in trade shows, seminars, and industry forums are just a few of the company’s marketing initiatives. The company also produces and distributes sales brochures, webinars, and white papers, and the company publishes press releases and articles in business and industry publications. The company maintains sales and service centers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America to enhance the support of, and communication with, customers.
The company typically provides product warranties for a period of one to five years depending on the product type, with some warranties of up to ten years for the company’s solar powered cold chain products, as they are connected to real-time monitoring services. Customer support capabilities include the utilization of offsite technicians and in-country support provided by local agents.
Competition
In the Sample Management Solutions segment, the company’s main competitors include Hamilton Company and Liconic AG for automation systems and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. for storage, consumables and services.
In the Multiomics segment, the company’s main competitors include BGI Genomics Co., Ltd., Eurofins, Scientific S.E., GenScript Biotech Corporation, Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc., Novogene Co., Ltd., and Twist Bioscience Corporation.
In the B Medical Systems segment, the company’s main competitors include Vestfrost Solutions and Haier Biomedical.
Manufacturing and Services
The company’s manufacturing operations include product assembly, integration, and testing. The company implements quality assurance procedures that include standard design practices, reliability testing and analysis, supplier and component selection procedures, vendor controls, manufacturing process controls, and service processes that ensure high-quality performance of the company’s products. The company’s major manufacturing facilities are in Missouri, the United States, Manchester and Wotton, the United Kingdom and Hosingen, Luxembourg. The company’s manufacturing operations are designed to provide high quality, optimal cost, differentiated products to its customers in short lead times through responsive and flexible processes and sourcing strategies. The company utilizes lean manufacturing techniques for a large portion of the company’s manufacturing.
The company has service and support locations near its customers to provide rapid response to their service needs. The company’s principal product service and support locations include Burlington, Massachusetts, and Manchester, United Kingdom.
The company provides sample management storage and transportation services in Billerica, Massachusetts; Indianapolis and Plainfield, Indiana; Fresno, California; Cleveland, Ohio; Griesheim, Germany; Montreal, Canada; Singapore; Beijing, China and various locations throughout the United States. The company has a network of 13 laboratories that provide genomic services, including six in the United States, three in China, two in the United Kingdom, and one each in Japan and Germany.
Patents and Proprietary Rights
As of September 30, 2024, the company owned approximately 92 issued U.S. patents, with various corresponding patents issued in foreign jurisdictions, and approximately 36 foreign (non-U.S.) issued patents. The company also had approximately 41 pending U.S. patent applications, with foreign counterparts of some of these applications having been filed or which may be filed at the appropriate time. The company’s patents began to expire at various dates beginning in 2024 and will continue to expire from time to time thereafter through 2042.
Environmental Matters and Government Regulations
Federal environmental legislation in the United States that affects the company includes the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act. The company is also subject to regulation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, concerning employee safety and health matters. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, OSHA, and other federal agencies have the authority to promulgate regulations that have an effect on the company’s operations.
The company’s operations are also subject to other government regulations in the United States and the other countries in which the company operates and conducts business. While most of the company’s products are not regulated, certain products in the company’s B Medical Systems segment and acquired from Barkey in the company’s Sample Management Solutions segment are regulated by the FDA under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and the company’s GLP regulatory services in the company’s Multiomics business require accreditation and certification of the laboratories in which the company performs those services.
The company’s businesses also include export and import activities, the company is subject to pertinent laws enforced by the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State and Treasury. In addition, the company’s logistics activities must comply with the rules and regulations of the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and similar foreign agencies.
History
The company was founded in 1978. It was incorporated in 1994. The company was formerly known as Brooks Automation, Inc. and changed its name to Azenta, Inc. in 2021.
