Merck Millipore Wins R&D Magazine 100 Award for its Direct Detect^® Protein Quantitation System

November 8, 2013, Darmstadt, Germany — Merck Millipore, the Life Science division of Merck, today announced that it has received the R&D Magazine 100 Award for its Direct Detect^® system. The Direct Detect^® system was recognized as one of R&D Magazine’s 100 most innovative and technologically significant products to be introduced into the marketplace in the year 2012 for being the first mid-infrared biomolecular quantitation system. Product Manager Celia Landers accepted the award on behalf of the division at the 51st annual R&D 100 Awards banquet on November 7 in Orlando, Florida.

“As scientists and engineers, it is great to be recognized for our efforts,” says Joseph Lento, R&D Engineering Manager for Merck Millipore’s Bioscience Business Unit. “Our goal is to provide innovative products to enable our customers to improve their workflow and gain more insight into their research. The Direct Detect^® system provides a significant advantage over current measurement techniques and workflows.”

With its mid-infrared based detection of amide bonds, the Direct Detect^® system is capable of obtaining accurate and consistent protein quantitation even in the presence of reducing agents and detergents. The product utilizes a card-based membrane where biomolecules can be directly applied and sampled permitting simultaneous analysis of proteins and other biomolecules present in biologically relevant materials.

The R&D 100 Awards are viewed as the “Oscars of Innovation” and recognize technologies in a wide variety of industries including telecommunications, high-energy physics, software, manufacturing, and biotechnology. Many of the winning products over the years have come to reshape everyday lives for many Americans such as the ATM (1973) and fax machine (1975). The winners are judged by an independent panel and editors of the R&D Magazine.

The Direct Detect^® system was also awarded a Stevie^® Award this past September in the New Product of the Year category for Health and Pharmaceutical Products.

About Merck Millipore
Merck Millipore is the Life Science division of Merck KGaA of Germany and offers a broad range of innovative, performance products, services and business relationships that enable our customers’ success in research, development and production of biotech and pharmaceutical drug therapies. Through dedicated collaboration on new scientific and engineering insights, and as one of the top three R&D investors in the Life Science Tools industry, Merck Millipore serves as a strategic partner to customers and helps advance the promise of life science.

Headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts, the division has around 10,000 employees, operations in 66 countries and 2012 revenues of € 2.6 billion. Merck Millipore operates as EMD Millipore in the U.S. and Canada.

Note: Merck KGaA or Merck shall mean Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany  
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, is a global pharmaceutical, chemical and life science company with total revenues of € 11.2 billion in 2012, a history that began in 1668, and a future shaped by approx. 39,000 employees in 66 countries. Its success is characterized by innovations from entrepreneurial employees. Merck KGaA's operating activities come under the umbrella of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in which the Merck family holds an approximately 70% interest and shareholders own the remaining approximately 30%. In 1917 the U.S. subsidiary Merck & Co. was expropriated and has been an independent company ever since.

Worldwide there are two separate companies that bear the name “Merck”, the original Merck KGaA from Darmstadt, Germany, the oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company in the world, and the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. in the United States. The rights to the name and trademark MERCK in North America (USA and Canada) lie with Merck & Co., the former U.S. subsidiary of Merck, whereas Merck KGaA operates in North America under the umbrella brand EMD. In the rest of the world, Merck KGaA owns the rights to the Merck name and trademark.

About R&D Magazine
Since its founding in 1959 as Industrial Research, R&D Magazine has served research scientists, engineers and technical staff at laboratories around the world, providing timely, informative news and useful technical articles that broaden readers’ knowledge of the research and development industry and improve the quality of their work. R&D Magazine is a publication of Advantage Business Media (www.advantagebusinessmedia.com).