Pittcon forecast: Sunny days ahead

Abstract

Instrumentation executives are by nature an optimistic lot. This year, leaders attending the Pittcon scientific instrumentation conference in sunny Orlando had more reasons than usual to be optimistic. As Pittcon got under way at the end of February, the economy, both in the U.S. and globally, was gaining momentum. Increases in academic and business investment, especially in the life sciences, had already translated into strong instrument sales in 2017 for instrument makers such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waters Corp., Bruker, and Shimadzu. Executives from those firms said the trend should continue, and even accelerate, in 2018. At Pittcon in Chicago last year, instrumentation executives were wary of U.S. tax reform and the changes it could bring to the way they operate. Now that the law is in place, though, executives expect they will benefit from lower tax rates and new rules allowing them to move profits banked offshore back to