"We're potentially entering a retail era where companies are marketing and selling testing services directly to the consumer," said Dr. Bruce A. Friedman, a pathology professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.
The company has three core markets: tests and measurements, a $5.4 billion business in 2001 that entails selling testing equipment and services to a range of industries; semiconductor products, a $1.8 billion business in 2001; and life sciences and chemical testing, a $1.1 billion business last year.
Several companies began selling test kits.
It shut down an online firm selling "tested green" certifications for products that were neither tested nor green.
For TB alone, more than 50 firms are developing or already selling tests that might be useful in poor places.
Theral Timpson, president of Consumer Genetics, said his company, in Sunnyvale, Calif., had not raised much money yet and hoped to support itself by selling tests in the meantime.
Although commercial chips with built-in lasers are years away, Luxtera, a company in Carlsbad, Calif., is already selling test chips that incorporate most optical components directly into silicon and then inject laser light from a separate source.
Last week, a Houston, Texas, company called Gene by Gene (GBG) retreated from its Myriad challenge, agreeing to stop selling test kits in North America.
The company has had a good run selling test stands, which cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to other fuel-cell developers.
Beckman Coulter Inc., which sells testing equipment to medical laboratories and drug companies, said yesterday that Amin I. Khalifa would step down as chief financial officer.
Beckman Coulter Inc., which sells testing equipment to medical laboratories and drug companies, won a $934 million jury verdict, which included $931 million in punitive damages, from Flextronics International Ltd.
