Date: Jun 18, 2011 Source: (
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LANSING — The holding company of Lansing's Transonic Systems, Inc. acquired a Canadian firm in early July in a move company officials say will spark growth at both businesses.
Measurement Innovation Corp. (MIC), the holding company, closed an acquisition of Scisense, Inc. of London, Ontario on July 1. In addition to Transonic, MIC owns Endosomatic Systems Inc. of Davis, Calif. and sales, marketing, and service divisions in the Netherlands, Taiwan, and Japan.
Financial terms of the Scisense acquisition were not disclosed.
Transonic manufactures flow-measurement devices with applications in medicine and research. The company's products are used in everything from heart surgery to dialysis and in research labs around the world.
Scisense produces advanced products for assessing cardiac pressure volume and blood pressure.
The companies complement each other well, Cornelis Drost, Transonic founder and CEO and MIC chairman, said in an email. The ability to offer combined measurement of both blood flow and pressure will spur new innovations in the firms' diagnostic devices. That will lead to growth in Ithaca and Ontario, Drost said. The merger did not result in any job cuts, he added.
"With this merger we are now able to offer our customers complete and exceptional cardiovascular solutions," Scisense President and CEO Blair Poetschke said in a news release.
"It will also enhance our ability to develop revolutionary products in the near future that will further strengthen our global position."
MIC aims to acquire companies in the biomedical and life-sciences technologies arena. The idea is for them to maintain their specialties while taking advantage of pooled marketing and sales efforts.
The firms under MIC's umbrella also benefit from complementary manufacturing, joint technologies, combined research and development work, and joint engineering, Drost said.
Transonic is in the middle of an expansion project to double the size of its headquarters on Dutch Mill Road. The company is adding a 30,000-square-foot addition to its current facility of the same size that will house its manufacturing operations.
The company's current headquarters in the town of Lansing houses its entire operation. That includes manufacturing, sales, engineering, and everything else.
There is no more room for additional manufacturing or expansion in the old building, so the company is building the addition. Once complete, the new building will house manufacturing, while all other operations will stay in the existing structure.
Transonic employs more than 140 people. The company is projecting 20 new jobs in the next three years. Scisense employs 25.
The company has been growing at a pace of 6 percent to 10 percent a year for the past 14 years, company leaders say. The firm's annual sales have expanded in that period from $7 million to $20 million.
Its sales have been boosted by an expanding worldwide presence. The company's international divisions all opened in the past five years with Japan launching in 2006 and Taiwan in 2007. Transonic expanded into the Netherlands last year.
Drost founded the company in 1983. It's based on work he was involved with originally at Cornell University. Drost was the main researcher on a project at Cornell to adapt what became some of Transonic's core technology for medical use.
