Question for you about 5600. We are considering it because we were told the reputation is solid. However, could you tell me if the system has to be closed to testing to do a calibration? How often do you really calibrate the IA's? If the reliability is bad what are the pitfalls? I have a bad feeling that if we go this route we may regret it....

Do Farts have lumps?

It occurs to me as a bit of an outsider that if ISE's last only five days and the company charges a lab for replacements that there is a big problem. It is already enough of an inconvenience to replace any component and having to do that every five days is simply not acceptable these days. But to have the nerve to charge for it is crazy. At a minimum, customers should demand pricing based on either price per day or price per test, but never price per unit. If this is an example of the state of Vista today, after all of these years of excuses and explanations, I would think that Siemens should take a long hard look at how much more they want to invest in Vista and what are the new (reforecasted) potential sales and profits. Simply starting from the beginning with a combination of Dimension and Centaur with some added DPC assays would probably be the best way for Siemens to invest its precious R&D dollars. It is time for them to focus and get rid of all of the products that either have no long term future (as they are doing with Immulite) or that are not very profitable. After all of this time, Siemens has to assess the future of Vista in an unbiased and dispassionate manner.

What exactly impressed you? You might want to talk to some people who use it. My friend in Texas was excited about on board QC and cals until they got the system. He says its a total pain to deal wtih the cals and there are about 30 of them. NOT GOOD. Also, down time is a big issue. He verified that ISEs only last 5 days. A big disappointment especially for the price they paid. Those monsters aren't cheap!

OMG 120 Vistas in about 4 years?? That's good?? Right... There are almost that many OCD5600s out there after 1.5 years. Both have equally poor reliability... My lab has 5600s and quite honestly they are down weekly. A friend of mine works in a lab with Vistas and the service guys are there almost daily. He says the on-board QC and cals is a pain-in-the-___, and not worth the trouble.
What happened to quality analyzers?? Life in the lab is not getting easier.

Just proves my point from several months back -- Vista 500 will reestablish Siemens at the top of the chemistry market. Most labs don't cross over in November and December due to employees on vacation. Watch the statistics after January/February ... this analyzer will rapidly build its base.

CAP Participant Summary Survey C-C 11/30/09

TBIL (represent general chem)
All Instruments = 5980
Vista = 120

TSH (represent Immunoassays)

All = 2863
Vista = 74

It is growing see below
The following was posted in this thread on July 7.

cTnI; labs = 47. interlab CVs 6.2 and 6.7% at 7.9 and 1.0 ng/mL, respectively. 4th best CVs of 14 methods.

CK-MB; labs = 46. CVs of 3.1 and 3.2%. Best interlab CV of 14 methods.

TSH; labs = 44. CVs between 3.0 and 3.6% for all 5 samples. 1st or 2nd best interlab CV of 20 methods.

Na; labs = 57. CVs of 1.5 – 1.6% which is comparable to all other methods.

Please stop trying to confuse the ex-Dade spinners with facts and data. They are too arrogant to care. It is becoming more obvious that the REAL contribution of the DPC portion of DX is the Kool-Aid in the water in LALA land. It must be wonderful to sit around drinking Kool-Aid all day, smoking funny cigarettes, and living in a world of blissful denial. Please have some mercy on the the SS (Siemens' Stoners).

The "Show Me" shows Vista is not getting it done. To grow your business it is not enough to eat your young (replace Dimension with Vista 500) you have to eat someone else's young. Vista was supposed to break into market segments Dimension could not penetrate. This has not happened. Reviewing the CAP survey numbers the new Beckman, and Roche instruments that came out about the same time, or later, than Vista have much higher numbers of participants. Hard evidence Vista is not breaking into new market segments or competitors' customer base.

No spinning here. Siemens has problems with Vista. The next line is suppose to be an instrumentation combining Vista, Centaur and Immulite but it's several years off. At least that's what the people in LA have been told. Then again, they went from 1000 to 300 employees in three years after Siemens took over.
The redundancies will be taken care of in 2010, once again, starting with LA. The R&D branch there will be hit with a 20% or more cut. East coast will also face cutting but to a much lesser extent. In actuality, it all should have happened two years ago but CEO's started to play politics instead of doing their jobs. The global recession and with 70% overall orders down it finally pushed Loescher to force the issue. From a business perspective, DX has had flat growth for over a year and just bleeds way too much money into redundant and non-performing sites.
This is all about to change. Vista, Centaur and Immuilite were suppose to compliment each other. Just didn't work out that way.

Clearly more layoffs will happen and clearly there is a need to eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort among the various components of Siemens DX. However, layoffs, streamlining, consolidation, eliminating redundancy, or whatever else you want to call it, will NOT affect the sales of Vista. Vista is what it is and, from all REAL evidence, it is not yet what customers want. Whether 1 or 1000 people leave Siemens will not change the fact that Vista still needs improvements to make it an acceptable choice for a wide range of customers. The most recent spin is that in the next 3-6 months we will finally see sales take off.

SHOW ME the placements and I will become a believer. Keep trying to spin the slow or controlled rollout or whatever you want to call it, and I will continue to be a skeptic.

"Perhaps things will turn around in the next 3-6 months as you claim, but after what has happened so far at Siemens, I will put on my 'I am from Missouri' hat and wait for you and the other Vista cheerleaders and spinners to prove that you are right."
END QUOTE

The only possible way for a turn around is if Siemens finally finishes making the redundancy cuts it need to make to survive.
Healthcare growth is "flat". DX is still in need of an integration between Dade and Bayer. DPC has been virtually wiped out anyway, at least in LA. The only integration they had there were colored pinkslips. You can expect more cuts from all three companies in 2010 but, once again, LA will get the brunt of it. This time it's R&D will face necessary cuts. It's just too expensive a site to keep strictly for R&D and the manufacturing has already been vacated. DX will be facing cuts through next year. It is the "only" way for DX to survive or just keep bleeding money.

Once again the Dade spin machine is at work. Siemens spent years looking at the purchase of Bayer. Bayer was looking for a buyer as early as the very late 1990s and Siemens 'sniffed around' for years. One of the big intermediaries in this 'deal' was the former Bayer VP, GW who was ousted from Bayer as a result of a phsyical attack on an employee (over the issue of whether the lab was clean and neat enough). As far as M&A activity and corporate strategy, I probably have more experience in that area than 90 % of the posters here. The due diligence done by Siemens was sloppy and they were clearly fooled on a number of issues. Keep in mind that Bayer suffered the same problem when they bought Technicon only to find out that the so-called pipeline of ready-to-launch products (DAX and AXON) were nowhere near ready-for-prime-time. If nothing else, Bayer learned how to make their DX group look as attractive to Siemens as Technicon had appeared to them. Do you really expect us to believe that Siemens knowingly overpaid for DPC (just a customer list and the Immulite cash cow) and then for Bayer (just for Centaur since IMS and other Bayer chemistry systems had virtually no market share and no potential for great succes) and then finally figured it out when they paid a 'fair price' for Dade? DX sales have been flat for the past year or two. Siemens is NOT growing the business becuase there are so many problems with the pieces they bought. The integration/consolidtion effort is going much more slowly than anticipated, partially due to the holier-than-thou attitude of the Bayer people towards the DPC people, followed by the complete arrogance of the Dade people. Sorry ex-Dade people, the world does NOT revolve around you and your expected contribution to the success of Siemens DX bottom line has yet to materialize. Not only do I know alot about M&A, in general, and the history of the creation of Siemens DX, but I can read and understand a financial report that shows a divisions's success or failure. To date, the series of acquisitions is NOT working out according to plan. Perhaps things will turn around in the next 3-6 months as you claim, but after what has happened so far at Siemens, I will put on my 'I am from Missouri' hat and wait for you and the other Vista cheerleaders and spinners to prove that you are right. Good luck to you and to Siemens. I wish you all well.

I've heard that Siemens is losing greater than $110K/year on every vista that has been placed because of extensive over the top service and parts requirements. It appears that they can't keep the things working for more than a few days in a row if that. What's the story? Maybe they'll make it up on volume eh?

I must hand it to you -- you are indefatigable in your posts, and you don't let your lack of real knowledge hinder you in any way. Art Higgins shopped the Bayer DX business for years. From his time at Abbott he knew something about diagnostics, but he vastly preferred pharma. Siemens and other parties (lots of them) kicked the tires. That isn't the same as negotiations, which you would know if you knew anything about how M&A works. Siemens busdev looked at Abbott, Beckman, Dade, Bayer and every other scale property in the space long before the DPC deal. However, at the time of the DPC deal, neither the Bayer nor the Dade deals were even remotely close to happening. Siemens paid the price it paid because it thought it was buying something with growth potential. Do you even understand NPV and how valuation models work? The people at publicly traded companies who approve these deals have fiduciary obligations. They can't just pay a few billion for a customer list to support a deal that hasn't happened. The Bayer deal finally happened because Klaus Kleinfeld (Siemens CEO) sat on the Bayer board. The rushed due diligence and carve-out that followed tells you neither Siemens Healthcare nor Bayer DX were involved. This was strictly CEO-to-CEO, which means the DPC deal was not done with the expectation that a Bayer and Dade deal would soon follow. B/t/w IMS was on life support when the deal was finalized and played no role in the valuation.

Vista's success doesn't depend on 2010. That's just the year it will become fully apparent to the people (Siemens) who own the technology now. Vista has already paid off handsomely for the Dade shareholders who patiently funded its development. It has improved rapidly enough to justify aggressive production and placement activity in the second half of this year for both 1500 and 500. Those placements will take 3-6 months for installation and crossover studies (as you would know if you actually knew something about the industry), so the real impact will becom apparent in 2010.

I suggest you focus on badmouthing people in Tarrytown who are still working and contributing -- at least that seems like a field you know something about. You certainly know nothing about corporate strategy.

You may or may not be right about future revenues from Vista. Certainly the Advia chemistry systems were never intended to be big revenue generators since Bayer had to pay part of its 'profits' to both the instrument and reagent manufacturers involved. The intent of Advia chemistry systems was to have some presence in clinical chemistry and was actually a hedge against delays or ultimate failure of the Advia IMS. The deals made for the Advia chemistry system were necessary because Bayer had failed to support the two new systems it had at the time it acquired Technicon in 1989 (e.g., AXON and DAX). The failure to support those systems led to a rapid decline in Bayer's market share in clinical chemistry; Advia chemistry systems were a low-budget attempt to re-enter that market. As for Vista, it makes no sense to argue about what may or may not happen in 2010. What does seem true, is that the system is off to an extremely slow start (three years and no big market penetration to date) with many reports of instrument downtime and the need for repeated service calls (a number of posts have suggested that a full time service person is required for each system). Perhaps the reliability problems have been solved and perhaps the system will take off next year in terms of placements. My only point is that it seems quite premature to call the system a success today.

As for your comments about DPC, you should know that Siemens had been negotiating with Bayer for years before the DPC acquisition. The Immulite system did not compete directly with the Bayer immunochemistry systems (Immuno 1 and then Centaur) becuase DPC and Bayer focused on different market niches. Siemens' intent all along was to replace Immulite systems with Centaurs or some future system. The evidence for this is the rapidity with which they shut down all future Immulite system developments and how quickly they reduced the staff in LA. You may feel that Siemens overpaid for the customer list and cash cow that Immulite represented, but there are plenty of people who believe that Siemens overpaid for Bayer (on the speculation that IMS would be a success) and that they also overpaid for Dade (on the speculation that Vista was essentially ready for a full scale launch and would be an immediate success). It is entirely likely that Siemens was willing to overpay for all three companies because they saw an added value in having all three (e.g., they paid a premium for future synergy). We already know that the promise of the Advia IMS was not met; I believe that, despite protestations from obviously proud and loyal ex-Dade people, the ultimate judgment on Vista still awaits. To claim it is already a success in the market seems a bit premature.

Maybe the devotees of Biofind believe that Siemens bought the three diagnostics businesses for the reasons you cite, but no senior Siemens personnel would agree with your assessment, except perhaps for the Bayer rationale. At the time Siemens bought DPC, it had no intention of milking the business for cash. That occurred only after it purchased Bayer Diagnostics. Don't tell me that was always the plan -- the multiple paid for DPC made no sense if it was just for the customer list (MZ's negotiating skills can't explain the difference, either). As for Dade, its position in chemistry and immunochemistry was clearly the attraction, but Siemens paid a huge premium because of what it considered to be the long-term FUTURE prospects of the business, and ER and all of the other Siemens personnel on the M&A team felt that Vista (which was and is the successor product to Dimension)was critical to that valuation. Ask anyone who was actually involved with the deal -- the acquisition of Dade hinged on Siemens' assessment of Vista. Since Siemens paid a very high price for Dade based on its assessment of Vista's future prospects, I think it is inarguable that Vista was a smashing success from the standpoint of any Dade shareholder.

It is a safe bet that revenue attributable to Vista will exceed that for Advia chemistry in 2010. You don't see that from the CAP numbers, which treats placements equally. Every Vista placement will generate far more revenue for Siemens than an Advia placement because the menu includes far more immunoassays, plus the instrument price is higher. Combined Vista 1500 and 500 placements worldwide, plus the reagent revenue from the current Vista installed base, will easily generate more sales revenue for Siemens in 2010 than Advia will. In fact, since this growth will occur off a relatively small base, Vista will likely be one of the fastest growing products in the entire Siemens product portfolio -- not just DX but for all of Healthcare. That's what Siemens paid for. If I'm right, I think it is fair to say that senior management at Siemens will agree that Vista is a success, which is probably more important to the average DX employee than your opinion.

I will be the first to admit that the acquisiton of Dade by Siemens was a windfall for Dade shareholders. But let's get the rationale for the purchase correct, please. The Dade purchase was part of a three company acquisition strategy: DPC was acquired for its installed based of Immunlite systems and the associated customer list (with no intention to extend the Immulite product line in the future since Immulite was viewed primarily as a cash cow). Bayer was bought for its overall immunochemistry business which was primarily the Centaur as well as the all-important licenses for HIV and Hepatitis; the Advia IMS was considered an added bonus IF it ever worked (which it did not and was subsequently killed by Siemens) and a small business in clinical chemistry with their Japanese produced Advia chemistry systems and UK produced reagents. Dade was purchased for its clinical chemistry strength as represented by Dimension as well as its coverage of serum proteins (through its previous acquisition of Behring Diagnostics) and TDA and DOA methods (through its former acquisition of Syva). As was true with the Advia IMS, Vista was considered an hope for the future, but was probably not part of the overall equation. The long list of posts here about problems with Vista (both from inside Dade and by customers) attests to the problems this system has had. Be it the 1500, which has been around for three years with placements well below forecast or the 500 which is yet to show widespread penetration into the market, the system can hardly be called a success today. We will, however, mark your words about the future, and see if you are any better at forecasting than Dade marketing people have been over the past three years. Please do not insult our intelligence by claiming that Vista IS a success in one sentence and then claiming it WILL be a success in the next sentence. The fact that the 1500 has failed to compete successfully against even the Advia chemistry systems will all of their deficiencies is not a good sign. One would think that over the past three years, sales would have been have favored Vista over Advia for several reasons including the much larger potential menu for Vista, the known quality of the Dimension reagents and methods that have been adapted for Vista, and the general reputation of Dade over Bayer when it comes to clinical chemistry systems. This has simply not been the case. Perhaps all of the problems with Vista have been solved, but once again, we are talking about the present in which Vista has not yet become a success versus your prediction of sucess in the future.

Success? Vista is absolutely a success. First, Siemens acquired Dade largely because of Vista. I'm sure any former Dade shareholders would agree with me that the acquisition price qualifies as a success. Second, as has been pointed out many times, the mid-range Vista, the 500, just launched. It doesn't appear in the CAP data because crossover studies create a lag. This isn't true for Advia, which has been around a long time and becomes less attractive with each passing day. You can keep repeating the same stupid "Vista has been around for three years" point, but the important thing to focus on is the Vista 500 placements that will occur over the next 6-12 months. Mark my words, these will lead the industry and solidify Vista as a leading IVD brand. Advia has never accomplished that, and never will.

Let me get this straight. You are claiming that 79 reporting systems (and maybe 100-150 systems total in the US) represent success for a system that has been on the market for almost 3 years and is supposed to be a revolutionary way to consolidate work in a clinical laboratory. When compared with the Advia chemistry systems which are also for mid-sized labs, and given the low quality level of methods on the Advia systems (they use the cheapest possible reagents from a fairly well known low quality supplier) it sounds like Vista is still not gaining anywhere near the customer acceptance level that would be expected for such a system. I'm sure there will be more posts explaining this in terms of slow rollout programs or the negative impact of the Dade acquisition on sales, but the truth is that the system simply does not perform as claimed in terms of reliability and down time. Success? I think not.

I don't work for Siemens or their DOA, but I'll address your stupid post. The reason Dimension customers haven't switched to Vista is that most Dimension customers are in mid- to small size US hospital labs, or emergency labs in Europe. The Vista 1500, which launched at the end of 2006, is designed for larger labs. The Vista 500, which launched this summer, offers a viable replacement for most existing Dimension customers, and you'll see many of them switch. The CAP data won't reflect this for at least 2 quarters, given the time it takes for labs to do crossovers.

Next time you try to show us how witty you are, you might make sure that the underlying point is a sound one, otherwise you just come across as an ass.

Very impressive. Vista now has one third of the number of labs reporting as does the Advia system. The Advia system has been around for almost 10 years now and has not made significant inroads into the market, primarily due to its somewhat sparse menu (I'm sure there will be alot of argument about that, but facts are facts) and the fact that the reagents are provided by a 'low cost' (translate to low quality) manufacturer. Some of the most basic methods required 'reworking/upgrading' after launch since their performance was unacceptable to customers (Bayer knew this at the time of the original launch, but didn't care as launch was in time to get bonuses for their executives). Vista has been around for 2-3 years already and has a much larger menu than Advia with superior, time-tested, customer-accepted methods and yet still isn't catching on as a significant competitor. Maybe my math is fuzzy, but it looks like Vista has less than 2 % of the market (for glucose). Even Dimension customers don't seem to be switching. All the talk about slow, controlled rollout is nothing more than a smokescreen to cover up the fact that the system just doesn't do what it is claimed to do and doesn't provide a product that can perform routinely in a clinical lab. As an outsider who enjoys the valiant attempts to 'spin' the facts about Vista, I await the next reply from Siemens' Department of Obfuscation and Apology (e.g, the DOA). Siemens would do far better by promoting their ability to 'spin' the facts (perhaps consulting for other companies) than continuing to push their white elephant.

At least VIsta is gaining market share!

UPDATED CAP DATA

From Survey C-B (July 2009)

GLUCOSE

All Labs = 5758
Beckman (All) = 1403
Vitros = 974
Abbott = 274
Roche - Cobas = 605
Roche - Hitachi = 298
Siemens Advia = 253
Siemens Dimension = 1155
Siemens Vista = 79

TSH

All Labs = 2669
Abbott Architect = 159
Beckman Access = 478
Beckman Unicell = 183
Roche Elec/E170 = 305
Ortho = 181
Siemens Centaur = 324
Siemens Dimension = 742
Siemens Vista = 54

Make of it what you will.

Ha Ha Ha Ha. Vista Still solid.

What,s a visa?

"Immulite selling like hotcakes. And everyone gave up on the black sheep of the family. Maybe former Daders could learn a few things from former DPCers."

Like Pontiac, they must be having some sort of going out of business sale...

Immulite selling like hotcakes. And everyone gave up on the black sheep of the family. Maybe former Daders could learn a few things from former DPCers.

It's over! Give it up already! There is minimal if any hope here. Nobody at the helm to steer it through and in the past, nothing but posers from Dade who are laughing all the way to the bank.

From what the Dade/Siemens people tell you, you would think Vista is as solid as a rock. From what the marketplace shows, Vista is solid like a brick in basketball or cement shoes in a gangster movie.

Vista 500 STILL Solid!

57 labs might be impressive if a total of 100 labs reported results. What are the total labs reporting? That will say much about Vista market share.

I can just speak for my part of the country as I just finished a project for my lab committee.
State # Vistas-labs
IA 2-1
MO 0-0
KS 2-1
NE 2-1
AR 2-1
2 labs I talked to said that they call service about once per week. Response time was good but usually next day for repairs.
Also, ISEs last 5 days...
Finally, both said they were using more reagents than projected...
I was not impressed.

57 labs reporting Na? Is that all the sales Siemens has made in three years?.

To the CAP Data. CAP Today listed only 300 instruments installed since 2006.......why the lag?????

The Vista 500 launched within the last month or so, not in 2006. Contrary to the last few posts, early sales results are strong and the installations have gone well. Given that most installs take 3+ months, you should start to see real sales momentum later this year and into 2010.

As for Vista 1500, the Dade plan was to launch at a single customer site in 2006, and move cautiously throughout 2007 while the technology matured. The Siemens deal disrupted these plans, but it is fair to say that the launch is about one year behind plan. So what? These instrument families are around for years. Dimension launched in the mid-80s and retains a significant amount of market share today. With the launch of the 500, Siemens now has a replacement for the Dimension RxL. Even if they are a bit late, they are well poised to take market share going forward, especially in the U.S., where Roche continues to stumble, Ortho offers a second-rate product and Abbott has never succeeded in routine chemistry.

To the CAP Data. CAP Today listed only 300 instruments installed since 2006.......why the lag?????

Well said and I too will confirm that you are absolutely correct.

Solid like a brick. It could become the replacement product for the cement shoes the mob used to use.

Vista 500 still solid

Very sad people here.

Are you auditioning for the next Michael Moore movie? Sicko II ??

Most recent CAP data:

The following was posted in this thread on July 7.

cTnI; labs = 47. interlab CVs 6.2 and 6.7% at 7.9 and 1.0 ng/mL, respectively. 4th best CVs of 14 methods.

CK-MB; labs = 46. CVs of 3.1 and 3.2%. Best interlab CV of 14 methods.

TSH; labs = 44. CVs between 3.0 and 3.6% for all 5 samples. 1st or 2nd best interlab CV of 20 methods.

Na; labs = 57. CVs of 1.5 – 1.6% which is comparable to all other methods.

No bias here. Don't own one, don't sell them.

All the verbiage aside, still waiting for hard data on Vista market penetration. CAP reporting may not be the best, but is the best indicator that is publicly available.
Anyone still working in the lab want to post number of labs reporting and number of labs using any model of Vista?

What's your point on the $40mm? No one else put in as much, and the banks happily lent Bain the money to do the deal. That's how private equity works. Why do you think these guys get so rich? No members of duPont DX or its R&D team tried to buy the business, so they have nothing to complain about. The duPont deal was a huge success for Bain -- basically led to Hoechst jumping on board as owners after Bain/Dade acquired Behring in 1998. They deserve a lot of credit for doing such a smart deal. Remember, the excessive debt didn't come into play until much later, 1999.

Xpand launched in 2001. The program started long after duPont sold the business to Bain (1996), but the launch occurred during the debt restructuring, as Bain's influence was definitely minimal. RC, who was the Xpand core team leader, heads up the Vista 500 project. He is far more competent than many of the (long gone) duPonters who left after the deal closed. The real brains behind RxL and Xpand largely remained and play key roles on Vista development projects.

Easy there, son ... think you must have typed this while lying face down in a pool of chemicals left by duPont somewhere in DE or southern NJ. I could care less about Bain. However, the fact remains that worldwide Dimension sales were approx. $120 mm the year before Bain purchased duPont's dx business (1995). Sales outside the US were less than $30mm. The launch of RxL and the huge acceleration in sales growth for the Dimension product line occurred after Bain bought the business. Don't the owners deserve some credit? Maybe the Dade sales and service organization offered capabilities that weren't present under duPont ownership. Definitely the Marketing was better.

No revisionist history is being offered, just facts. By the way, many of the same people who played key roles in developing Dimension (especially in its vastly superior RxL and subsequent model forms) also worked on Vista. You can't have it both ways (actually, I think time will prove Vista to be every bit as successful as Dimension, certainly more ambitious technologically). At least Dade didn't start shipping Dimension instruments to hundreds of customers when it wasn't even close to ready. That was a duPont decision. I'm guessing that part of the history is one you wouldn't mind revising.

DuPont didn't even want you ... remember, they sold the business to Bain? I've never understood why these ex duPonters can't wait to post negatoive stuff about Bain and Dade.

I am not sure who the Bain supporter is out there, but I am not going to buy into his revisionist history. The most successful product line in clinical chemistry history is indeed the Dimension product line. From start to finish Bain had VERY little to do with its development and evolution. Indeed part of the reason Bain could leverage so much money in the purchase of DuPont IVD (BTW- Bain's total investment was USD 40 million, the rest was leveraged debt) was the promise of the Dimension line. RxL and Xpand were well into their development long before the Bain crew showed up, and just because they purchased the company doing the development at the last stages of development does not give them credit for invention and innovation. You want to see a product developed by Dade expertise look to Paramax or Vista, there's a couple of successes for you!

She has no problems, and you know that. You hired a person to "get rid of her and make it look like an accident."

And the Bain's have been employing the same people you gave this money to ever since she was a kid. (his last name is Romney)

Not to bore our younger readers, but your assertions re. market share are wrong. Bayer was an also-ran in chemistry throughout the 90s. The old Technicon business and the various efforts to revive it failed in all aspects. This was the case at the start of the decade, and only grew worse in subsequent years. Remember, the braintrust in Tarrytown placed its bets on IMS, which turned out to be a big error in judgement.

In the US, Kodak/J&J, BMC and Beckman led the market; outside the US BMC dominated (as Roche does today, largely because of the BMC business it purchased). With the introduction of the RxL in 1997, Dimension joined the market leaders, at least in the US. That belies your point re. Bain, doesn't it? The most successful Dimension platform ever was introduced when Bain owned a majority stake. After Roche bought BMC and J&J bought Kodak, Beckman and Dade Dimension became the US market leaders. Roche, in spite of its stumbles in the US, continued to lead everywhere else.

The Consent Decree between the US and Abbott was the other big story in this timeframe. This (and other missteps) caused Abbott to go from a 40% share to less than half of that. Dade picked up some of that business on Dimension, but most of it went to Bayer, Beckman, DPC and others.

And that's the end of today's history lesson.

I realize that the original post about Bain's so-called contribution to diagnostics came from the individual who has a major problem with her personal life and has used this site as a vehicle to vent her frustrations. Nonetheless, the statement about Bain did require correction. It is good to see that other posters here agree that Bain had virtually no role in the actual advancement of the clinical diagnostics business from product-line point of view and that their involvement in this industry was purely a financial arrangement. Whether they intentionally filed for bankruptcy or not (and such a tactic is a legitimate one under certain circumstances), is not the issue here. Bain has its own long history of owning various businesses and using their own brand of financial tactics to increase the stock value of those businesses. I would submit, however, that Bain does not have a track record of actually growing the business itself through new and innovative produts or by primarily increasing market share through their own actions. Much of the increase that Dade, Beckman and Boehringer-Mannheim (Roche) achieved during the 90s was due to the loss of business by Bayer. When Bayer acquired Technicon in 1989, Technicon had approximately one third of the clinical chemistry market worldwide; by the time it was sold to Siemens their share had declined to about 5-10 %. A case can be made that the other three simply outperformed Bayer, but the reality is that Bayer never did anything to enhance their clinical chemistry business, but chose instead to focus solely on immunochemistry since they believed that clinical chemistry was such a mature market that customers would accept any product that claimed to run the various tests and wouldn't care about quality. Obviously, they were wrong and their market share suffered as a result.

As a last thought, it is also obvious that the poster with the personal problems is well known to other posters here. It might be a good idea to try to counsel this person to seek some real help rather than just boring us all here with her temper tantrums. It is not sufficient to simply pity such pathetic behavior; please help your frustrated colleague.