Sensortec Ltd has sold Cawood Ltd, its successful agricultural contract testing business, in a management buyout. Sensortec has developed Cawood over the last 8 years through the merger of several small testing laboratories, and has achieved consistent year-on-year sales growth. The proceeds from this transaction will be invested in the company's biosensor business, Universal Sensors, as it moves from research activities to commercialisation.
Richard Wardle, Chairman of Sensortec, commented: "The management buyout of Cawood is the start of an exciting new chapter for both companies. It gives Cawood the opportunity to continue its expansion and Sensortec the ability to bring a series of new products to market via its biosensor business, Universal Sensors Ltd, which itself is growing rapidly.
"The invesent from this transaction will support further development of a series of new product platforms, including the Vantix Point-of-Care for medical diagnostics and the Vantix Mobile system for the detection of hospital superbugs, funded in part through the Deparent of Health's Small Business Research Initiative. Universal Sensors will be launching a series of new Vantix products throughout 2011 – including a rapid portable test for the detection of antibiotics in animal feed for the growing agritech mobile testing market."
As part of the focus on the commercialisation of its products, the Company also announced that it is has changed the name of its biosensor business from Universal Sensors to Vantix Ltd, bringing together the branding of the company with that of its products.
About Vantix Ltd
Vantix Limited has developed a biosensor platform for the detection of a range of contaminants, toxins and disease markers in complex aqueous based samples. The Vantix biosensors are sensitive, fast and versatile so that they can be used with existing assays and automated in a range of product platforms. We focus on developing product systems which move tests out of the laboratory and to the point-of-care or point-of-use.
The Vantix product range includes: a laboratory research instrument (Vantix Research) for the development of new methods, a table-top Point-of-Care system in development for use in hospitals and in the community (Vantix Point-of-Care) and a future mobile system for Point-of-Use (Vantix Mobile).
Vantix Ltd enters into collaborations and partnerships to apply its platform technology in vertical markets. Vantix Limited is a subsidiary of the Sensortec Group and leads the development and commercialisation of the Sensortec IP in future generations of diagnostic and analytical devices.
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