Intertek Group Regulatory News (ITRK)

5 Dec 2006 07:00

Intertek Group Plc (Intertek), the leading international providerof quality and safety services to a wide range of industries,announces that its Oil, Chemical and Agri division (Caleb Brett) hasacquired Alta Analytical Laboratories Inc. (Alta). £ Alta is a leading supplier of Immunochemistry and LC/MS/MSbio-analytical services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industriesin North America. Alta has laboratories located in San Diego and nearSacramento, California with approximately 110 staff and counts majorglobal pharmaceutical companies among its clients. Both laboratoriesare known for their technical expertise, rigorous compliance programs,and excellent customer service. £ The acquisition will advance Intertek's strategic growth insupporting the global pharmaceutical and biotech industries throughthe provision of extensive method development capabilities and acomprehensive range of state of the art analytical testing services.Intertek's Executive Vice President and CEO of the Caleb BrettDivision, Mark Loughead, comments: "Alta has earned an outstandingreputation for quality and service and its expertise will furtherexpand our ability to respond to the needs of the pharmaceutical andbiopharmaceutical industry for outsourced R&D and testing support. Itestablishes a firm platform for further development for Intertek inthe USA." Intertek already provides testing services to pharmaceuticalclients from its laboratories in the UK. £ Bob Bethem and Jo Smolec, Ph.D., the Alta Analytical Laboratorybusiness heads, comment: "Acquisition by Intertek allows Alta theability to invest in the next phase of expansion to grow our servicesand offer extended expertise to our existing clients. Becoming part ofIntertek's global business and reach provides a powerful opportunityto expand our bio-analytical services to existing and newinternational customers and markets." £ About Intertek: £ Intertek Group Plc (FTSE:ITRK) is a leading international providerof quality and safety services to a wide range of global and localindustries. Partnership with Intertek brings increased value tocustomers' products and processes, ultimately supporting their successin the global market place. Intertek has the experience, expertise,resources and global reach to support its customers through theirnetwork of 910 laboratories and offices, 17,400 people in 110countries around the world. www.intertek.com £ About Intertek's pharmaceutical services: £ Intertek's Oil, Chemical & Agri division, Intertek Caleb Brett,provides 24/7/365 testing and inspection services to the globalchemical, petroleum and refining industries and provides a wide rangeof routine and non-routine laboratory testing services to supportpharmaceutical, biotechnology and nanotechnology clients. A growinginternational network of Intertek laboratories serves clients on aglobal basis with services including laboratory testing, outsourcing,inspection, R&D and process services. Intertek laboratories areideally suited to support a diverse range of fine chemical,pharmaceutical and biotech activities.www.intertek-cb.com/newsitetest/services/pharmaceutical/index.shtml £ About Alta Analytical Laboratory: £ Alta Analytical Laboratory is a contract testing laboratory withlocations in two California, USA sites: Sacramento and San Diego. Altaprovides liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) andimmunochemistry contract laboratory services to pharmaceutical,biotech and chemical clients. Since 1990, Alta has provided GoodLaboratory Practice (GLP) services for early drug development, andpre-clinical and clinical studies out of its LC-MS/MS lab nearSacramento. The company added immunochemistry services in San Diego in1999. Alta's primary strength lies in its ability to rapidly developrobust and sensitive analytical methodologies and efficiently utilizethese novel methods in a high throughput setting.http://www.altalab.com/ £ High resolution images of Intertek Group Plc businesses areavailable to download, free of charge from www.vismedia.co.uk Copyright Business Wire 2006