The 21st Analytica has 'more than surpassed' expectations and draws to an end with the largest number of international exhibitors and visitors since the fair was founded 40 years ago
36 percent of the 1032 exhibiting companies from 34 countries (compared to 847 exhibitors from 32 countries at Analytica 2006) were from countries other than Germany.
Of the approximately 32,500 visitors from 111 countries who attended the fair (compared to 27,190 visitors from 94 countries at Analytica 2006), some 33 percent were from abroad.
According to Hans-Joachim Heusler, managing director at Munich International Trade Fairs, "In absolute numbers, the number of international exhibitors increased by more than 80 compared to 2006, and some 11,000 international trade visitors came to Munich for this year's fair, which is about 4,250 more than in 2006".
The large share of international participants confirms Analytica's role as the largest exhibition for analysis, laboratory technology and biotechnology and the world's leading exhibition for this sector.
The positive results of this year's fair are a tribute to exhibitors and visitors alike.
Exhibitors expect good post-fair business.
Given the positive economic situation, the industry is experiencing an upward trend.
This was reflected by the mood among visitors: exhibitors noticed a definite increase in the number of visitors who intended to make purchases - from both the commercial and public sectors - and reported a large number of leads and extremely high-quality customer contacts.
According to Thomas Brunner, managing director of BioTek Instruments , "We generated significantly more contacts than two years ago.
"We have also noticed that people's willingness to invest was considerably higher, which is why we anticipate post-fair business to easily be in the six-digit range".
Number of visitors confirms noticeable upward trend in the industry.
The approximately 32,500 visitors from 111 countries at this year's fair confirmed the upward trend in the industry.
The number of visitors was up nearly 20 percent compared to the 2006 fair.
The number of international visitors increased by more than 60 percent compared to the last analytica.
Besides countries that are traditionally well represented such as Austria and Switzerland, the countries that accounted for the largest number of visitors included the UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United States, the Czech Republic and Spain.
The countries that had the largest growth rates included Central and Eastern European countries like Romania, the Russian Federation and Serbia.
Jurgen Semmler, managing director of Shimadzu Deutschland, was very enthusiastic about Analytica, "The exhibition went very well.
"Prior to the fair, we worked hard to get our customers, including those in northern Germany, to come to Munich - and we succeeded".
According to Semmler, all important international partners - including those in the company's European network, from the United States and Eastern Europe - were also at the fair.
"At times, all of the visitors at our stand on Thursday even exceeded our capacity".
The number of visitors who attended the Analytica conference was also impressive.
The rooms where the scientific conference was held, which are in the immediate vicinity of the exhibition halls, were overflowing at times.
The first-rate lectures, which were organized by the German Chemical Society (GDCh), the Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM) and the German Association for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (DGKL), covered the entire range of exhibition themes, running the gamut between science and industry.
The Analytica conference, which featured four parallel lecture series and 24 individual symposia, featured a total of 121 lectures, and 65 posters were published.
Half of the speakers were from other European countries, Canada and the United States.
The involvement of international scientific associations such as EuCheMs (European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences) also reflected the global nature of this year's fair.
According to Manfred Braun, director of the Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM), "The Analytica conference was a complete success.
"The topics made an impression on visitors and exhibitors alike.
"The people who spoke at the various sessions included leading international specialists in their disciplines such as proteomics.
"The conference rooms were overflowing with some 1500 audience members".
A new addition to the programme of events at this year's Analytica was the Innovations Area, which had more than 50 start-ups, research institutes and universities.
The new exhibition sector gave start-ups and spin-offs a perfect platform for presenting their business ideas and making new contacts.
According to Alan Douglas, CEO of Plasmonic Biosensor, "We were very surprised by the quantity as well as the extremely high quality of our discussions.
"As a start-up, our primary objective was to make contacts with potential partners, suppliers and, of course, customers.
"And we did, even at the international level.
"We will definitely be back in 2010".
For many companies such as Raman Biomed, a spin-off of Wurzburg University, and Coriolis, a spin-off of LMU in Munich, this was their first public appearance at an exhibition as a company.
Finance Day, another new attraction that featured professional panel discussions and presentations on ways to finance start-ups and company expansion, consistently continued the theme of promoting new companies.
Topics ranged from various aspects of government subsidies and financing to business development, venture capital, joint-venture models and listing companies on the stock exchange.
Markus Hofelich, project director of GoingPublic magazine's special issue on biotechnology: "Although Finance Day was held for the first time, we were surprised by the positive response.
"We look forward to organising another interesting Finance Day with prominent speakers again at the next Analytica".
Those who came to Analytica in search of new career prospects or qualified employees for their companies got what they were looking for at Job Day.
Organised by the online careers platform Jobvector and leading trade associations such as the German Chemical Society (GDCh), the Central Association for Biology, Biosciences and Biomedicine in Germany (VBIO) and the Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM), Job Day revolved around educational and career opportunities in the industry.
According to Tom Wiegand and Eva Birkmann, CEO at Jobvector, "With more than 2500 applicants in search of information about career opportunities in the life sciences, we were thrilled with the overwhelming success of Jobvector's Career Day.
"Participating companies such as Thermo Fisher Scientific and Roche Diagnostics held direct conversations with several qualified applicants".
This year's fair also took the topic of continued education into account with a separate series of training seminars for laboratory employees and managers that was organized by Klinkner and Partner.
Visitors gave the courses that were offered at this year's fair a rating of good to excellent.
