00:00:00 In the year 1610, in Italy, a mathematician called Galileo saw the heavens in a way that

00:00:29 no one had ever seen them. He saw that our moon had an uneven mountainous surface. He

00:00:39 saw that the Milky Way was composed of separate stars. He discovered the four largest moons

00:00:47 of Jupiter. And all because one year before, in 1609, he had heard of a simple magnifying

00:00:56 instrument and then built for himself the first complete astronomical telescope. A new scientific

00:01:06 age had begun. An instrument, the telescope, opened the universe to our probing eyes. More

00:01:15 than 300 years later, other instruments have opened the universe within living cells to our

00:01:21 probing eyes and have helped scientists discover the intricate genius of the life process. Because

00:01:29 of precision instruments that separate, analyze, and measure biological materials, science has

00:01:35 been immeasurably elegantly enriched. In the last 50 years, science has grown up and always right

00:01:43 alongside, nudging and nurturing, has been Beckman instruments. You cannot go to a research

00:01:52 laboratory in this country, possibly in the world, that does not use Beckman instruments. You cannot

00:01:59 go to a clinical laboratory in a hospital that does not use Beckman instruments. The quality,

00:02:05 precision, and diversity of Beckman's instruments have made them indispensable scientific tools for

00:02:12 50 years. Their contributions to basic research, to human health monitoring, and disease detection

00:02:19 have been of the greatest significance. Beckman instruments automate crucial laboratory procedures,

00:02:26 drastically reducing time and increasing accuracy. The enduring champion, the spectrophotometer,

00:02:33 allowing scientists to test vitamin content in minutes instead of examining rat tails over a

00:02:39 period of weeks. Electrophoresis, protein identification in two hours instead of 24.

00:02:45 The glucose analyzer, less than a minute instead of half an hour, of incalculable help to comatose

00:02:52 patients in insulin or diabetic shock. Astra, the flexible star of the clinical market,

00:02:59 yielding almost instant analysis of body fluids. Beckman instruments have changed science. The

00:03:07 ultracentrifuge, revolutionizing biochemistry by demonstrating how DNA replicates and how

00:03:14 genetic material is passed from one generation to the next. The amino acid analyzer, protein

00:03:20 sequencer, peptide synthesizer, all along with the ultracentrifuge, fundamental tools in biotechnology.

00:03:28 And Beckman instruments have helped fight disease. The oxygen analyzer, measuring oxygen in incubators,

00:03:36 preventing infant blindness. The ultracentrifuge, again, used in early research on poliovirus,

00:03:43 which led to the development of the Salk vaccine. There are instruments used in space. The gas

00:03:49 chromatograph, flying to Mars aboard the 1975 Viking spacecraft, searching for evidence of

00:03:56 life. And the list goes on. Four thousand instruments produced and sold throughout

00:04:03 the world, depended on and prized by lab technicians and Nobel laureates. Dr. Bruce

00:04:09 Merrifield, professor at Rockefeller University, winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

00:04:16 And at UCLA we had probably the first or second Beckman DU spectrophotometer, which is, we still

00:04:25 have one. It has to be the very best instrument that was ever built on any subject. I really,

00:04:33 I think that's the best instrument I know of. It still works. Dr. Roger Gehman, director of

00:04:39 endocrinology at the Salk Institute, recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine.

00:04:46 And it's impossible to think of the development of modern science, of the modern, of the current

00:04:54 concepts of science in modern biology, without the type of instrumentation that Beckman provided.

00:05:00 Dr. Walter Eckhart, professor and director of the Cancer Center at the Salk Institute.

00:05:06 I was in England, for example, in 1960 and used one of the first Beckman L

00:05:10 ultracentrifuges that was in Cambridge at that time where I worked. And I've used them all the

00:05:17 time since then. So they grow to be friends in a way. And we found them very reliable and good to use.

00:05:23 A new age has begun. An era of change, changing markets and attitudes and technologies. With

00:05:36 force and with vision, Beckman is responding to some of those changes, initiating others,

00:05:42 ensuring its continued success. Change has always been a factor in our operations,

00:05:49 particularly in the scientific or technological aspects. Our first pH meter, for example,

00:05:56 used a radio tube. That soon became obsolete with the invention of the transistor, which in turn

00:06:02 became obsolete with the invention of integrated circuitry and the microchip, microprocessor. So

00:06:09 over the years, we've always attempted to incorporate the best of the new developments

00:06:15 in science and change our instruments accordingly so we could be sure we're at the leading edge of

00:06:21 science and instrumentation. But it is not just the instruments that have changed, it is also the

00:06:28 markets. The 1940s, the war years. The military branch of the United States government is an

00:06:36 important customer. The 50s, the boom era for biology. NIH funding flows to big research labs

00:06:43 and they are hungry for Beckman instruments for basic research. The 60s, the Vietnam era. As the

00:06:51 war escalates, the funding flow to research labs is suddenly cut. The jolt forces Beckman into a

00:06:58 dramatic market shift to hospitals and clinical labs. By the late 60s and early 70s, Beckman

00:07:05 applies its basic technologies to clinical problems and develops new instruments for the

00:07:10 healthcare market. And now, in the mid-80s, the latest market shift in the direction of outpatient

00:07:17 testing and, for example, medical offices. And so, for all of Beckman instruments, the markets are

00:07:25 shifting and the reasons are clear. Growing national and international competition. Government

00:07:31 imposed cost containment policies for hospitals. The pressure on customers to balance price and

00:07:37 need. As the market for diagnostic instruments moves beyond the hospital lab, designs for these

00:07:45 instruments are changing too. Instruments are more complex, yet smaller and easier to use. And there

00:07:53 is yet another refocusing. This one in the market for bioanalytical instruments. Today, it centers

00:07:59 on the life sciences. This too is an evolution. From Spinco's acquisition in the 50s through the

00:08:06 expansion of Beckman's industrial group to include electronic technologies and process controls.

00:08:11 Through the merger with SmithKline, which meant a new focus on life sciences and the resulting

00:08:18 divestiture of the industrial businesses. Last few years have been difficult for the folks at Beckman.

00:08:23 It's been a tough transition. The transition of joining a new corporation. In fact, helping to

00:08:29 form a new corporation. SmithKline Beckman has brought about all the stresses and strains that

00:08:36 often come with that kind of organizational change. That's been compounded by the change in

00:08:41 the markets we serve. Real structural change in the last two years particularly. But I think that

00:08:48 period of transition is largely behind us. The basic and essential logic that brought us together

00:08:54 in the first place still holds. In fact, it's stronger than ever. Both in terms of our technical

00:09:00 positions and our market positions. And that's being perceived more and more every day by our

00:09:07 customers. I can see it in the order rates and I see it as I talk to the people on both coasts.

00:09:13 The sense of the business is stronger and frankly it feels good to me. As the markets shift, Beckman

00:09:20 is evolving from a company rooted in technology to one newly sensitive to the marketplace and

00:09:26 to the customer. Today at Beckman, there is new emphasis on market research, on the needs of the

00:09:33 customer, on designing products from the beginning that will fit into worldwide markets. Pat Sisson,

00:09:40 marketing manager, immunochemistry systems. Historically, we merchandise the technical

00:09:46 expertise or the technical innovative aspects of our products. Although that's very important

00:09:53 still today, the aspects of cost reduction and labor reduction are much more important than the

00:10:00 technological advantage. Markets and marketing ideas have changed over the years. Disciplines

00:10:06 have changed and so have Beckman people's talents. Now there's the urgent necessity to stretch out,

00:10:13 to learn new areas of science, to nourish new skills. Skills with computers, with software,

00:10:22 with lasers, with fiber optics. Embracing the new, yet needing the old.

00:10:31 In its offices and plants throughout the world, throughout the United States, Beckman people at

00:10:42 all levels are working together, sharing ideas and strategies more than ever before. Roger

00:10:49 Noweski, head of the spinco innovation. Recently we took the molecular structure R&D group,

00:10:55 took them off campus, put the scientists and engineers working very closely together to

00:11:01 develop a new product. So there's a sharing there, an innovation there, and it's extremely

00:11:06 important from the standpoint of the business here that we get teamwork. The robotics group

00:11:10 has to associate with the centrifuge development engineers. The robotics group has to associate

00:11:15 with the molecular structure R&D group. Two important ingredients. Invented, dynamic,

00:11:21 daring. This kind of creative thinking is typical of a 50-year Beckman tradition,

00:11:27 innovation and excellence. Another scientific revolution is at hand. Profound, shattering in

00:11:39 its implications. The revolution is in biochemistry. Slowly, scientists are moving

00:11:47 closer and closer to the secrets of individual cells, searching for ways to ensure wellness

00:11:54 and to prevent disease. New fields of explosive potential are opening, and Beckman is exploring

00:12:02 those fields, researching, developing and marketing products that promise expansive growth.

00:12:08 Most dramatic are the dazzling molecular biology technologies of recombinant DNA and

00:12:15 gene splicing. These are part of new biochemistry, emerging from research into reality. With these

00:12:22 techniques and with new technologies like hybridization probes, genetic problems in

00:12:28 developing fetuses can now be detected and may one day be prevented, and viral infections and

00:12:35 cancer will be identified earlier. Already, Beckman is marketing revolutionary instruments

00:12:42 like the DNA synthesizer called the gene machine that makes gene fragments and the protein peptide

00:12:49 synthesizer on which synthetic virus proteins can be made that can be used to create synthetic

00:12:55 vaccines. Already, such a synthesizer has helped to develop a vaccine for hepatitis and the promise

00:13:02 for more vaccines and for synthetic hormones is virtually limitless. Other new fields are opening,

00:13:11 microbiology technologies that identify infectious diseases and indicate which therapeutic drugs and

00:13:18 what dosages are effective. Immunochemistry systems that give complete clinical protein

00:13:24 analyses, yielding faster and earlier identification of hard-to-diagnose diseases. Scientists are

00:13:31 pioneering research on the deadly AIDS virus, using a Beckman immunochemistry system to test

00:13:38 for blood that might carry the disease. New also, and constantly expanding, is the use of

00:13:45 microprocessors in Beckman instruments, calculating test results with unimaginable speed and accuracy.

00:13:52 And with computers comes an explosion in software, with programs like Synlib, Expert, and real-time

00:14:00 quality assurance system. Soon, software will even be able to offer diagnostic interpretations

00:14:07 to physicians. And in its second 50 years, new products flow from Beckman. The appraised

00:14:14 densitometer, the most significant new instrument for its market. The tabletop ultracentrifuge that

00:14:21 can spin down DNA at 436,000 G's in two hours. UV spectrophotometers, liquid scintillation counting

00:14:30 systems, HPLCs. The wonders continue to pour out. As I look back over the past 50 years and realize

00:14:38 what the people of Beckman instruments have accomplished, I'm indeed very proud. The instruments

00:14:45 they have made have been of great value to mankind in many areas. In science, in medicine,

00:14:51 in agriculture, and industry. I must ask myself, what will they be doing in the forthcoming 50

00:14:59 years? When I think of the new discoveries that are being made, new technologies that are being

00:15:04 developed, I can be nothing but very optimistic indeed. I think the future is very bright for all

00:15:11 people of Beckman instruments. Galileo's telescope opened the immensity of the heavens to us. Beckman

00:15:21 instruments have opened the secrets of the cells to us. For 50 golden years past,

00:15:28 for uncountable golden years to come.