OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2011. Sony Corporation (‘Sony’) is pleased to announce that it has acquired U.S.-based venture corporation Micronics, Inc. (headquartered in Redmond, Washington) through its wholly owned subsidiary, U.S.-based Sony Corporation of America (‘SCA’). Micronics, Inc. is involved in the research and development of near patient Point of Care devices for disease diagnosis, treatment monitoring and blood testing, and also provides comprehensive product development for third-party clients. Sony has acquired Micronics, Inc. to accelerate its own research and development, particularly for Point of Care diagnostic equipment, as well as to accelerate the commercialization of these products.

Near patient Point of Care diagnosis refers to the ability to facilitate rapid and accurate results via testing that can be performed in a physician’s office, emergency room, or patient’s hospital bedside, rather than having to send a patient’s specimen(s) to an off-site laboratory. Utilizing its microfluidics technologies, one of Micronics, Inc.’s main strengths since its inception in 1996, the company has yielded numerous achievements in the advancement of near patient Point of Care products in both the molecular and immunoassay diagnostic test domain, in part through its collaborative partnerships with private and public organizations, both within the U.S. and internationally. Micronics has incorporated this rich experience in its development of a leading near patient Point of Care molecular diagnostic platform for the diagnosis of infectious disease, which has been the company’s main focus in recent years.

Micronics will be a wholly owned subsidiary of SCA, and will work with the relevant division, including Sony’s life sciences R & D team, to jointly develop leading-edge technologies and new products. The company will continue to operate in Redmond under the current Micronics management team, headed by President Karen Hedine.

According to Hedine, “As a new member of the Sony family, we at Micronics aim to make full use of Sony’s superior consumer-based technologies, product development capabilities and capacity to distribute products globally in the development of Micronics’ products. We believe that the powerful combination of Sony’s expertise with that of Micronics’ will lend itself to a new generation of market-responsive diagnostic products.”

Comment from Mr. Keiji Kimura. EVP and Executive Officer, Sony Corporation, said,
“The Sony Group warmly welcomes Micronics Inc. For some time, Sony has applied its consumer electronics technology to contribute to research and development in the medical and healthcare fields. We believe that the combination of Micronics’ development capabilities in the medical diagnosis domain and our consumer electronics and IT technologies, such as in optical discs, will enable us to offer innovative solutions that are responsive to the rapidly escalating needs for Point of Care diagnosis worldwide.”