Analytico Wicher R. Wichers, Chief Executive Officer
The article below has been placed in the book 'Werk!' 2003-2004

Wichers studied chemistry in Leiden and business administration in Delft. He worked several years at various companies, including Unilever. The chemist  has an entrepreneurial spirit and founded his own company in 1992: the laboratory organisation Pro Analyse. "Since then I've taken over quite a lot of companies. I wanted to grow quickly to create an increase in scales, and enter into the tough competitive struggle. Business-wise, it was absolute murder and manslaughter at the time. People who had dealt with each other for dozens of years as respectable gentlemen and suddenly did their utmost best to unseat each other from the saddle, that sort of situation."

"In the late Nineties things quieted down a little. Most companies were now gone, taken over or simply dead. In 1998 we made our biggest takeover until that time, BCO, which specialised in medical and pharmaceutical research, and changed our name to Analytico. Then, in 1999, we took over Medinet, a Novartis laboratory chain in which BCO had a participation. At that time, we had twelve takeovers under our belt and commanded twelve establishments, all of which did a little bit of everything. We reduced everything to three activities and three establishments: the environment (Barneveld), food (Heerenveen) and pharmaceuticals (Breda). We have our own offices in Antwerp and London."

Stock market quotation

"I considered the next step carefully: get involved in stabilisation of the foreign market? We thought about the going public in the stock market. But at that time the market collapsed and the number of companies that went into the stock market and collected capital there for investments fell back to zero. Reason enough not to do that. The alternative was looking for a link with an organisation which had been through it all before. In 2001, we found a link with the French company Eurofins Scientific, one of the biggest laboratory organisations in the world. Eurofins Scientific took us over." Eurofins is indeed a listed company. That certainly made a difference for the working method of the organisation, says Wichers. "Even so, you were living more or less in a glass house. The shareholders looked very critically - and rightfully - at what the company did. But, on the other hand, there is much more money available for new investments."

Just like Analytico, Eurofins had a period behind it of taking over many companies. "Before these different companies becomes a single well-functioning organisation, things have to happen. Partly because I already had this kind of experience at Analytico,  Eurofins asked me to be vice-chairman of the board."  Wichers has been working more and more for Eurofins. "At the moment I spend some 80 percent of my time on Eurofins, and only 20 percent on Analytico. I concentrate mainly on the pharmaceutical division."

Measurable certainty

Analytico is an internationally-operating bio-analytical service provider. That is to say, the company serves customers with laboratory research in the areas of the environment, pharmaceuticals, health care and food. For our customers more than four-hundred personnel analyse a broad range of samples - blood, for example, soil, water and foods. The mission: acquiring certainty about the measurable factors which influence the mental and physical health of man:  food, the environment and medical care; Additionally Analytico provides services in the areas of advice, project management, logistics, method development and electronic data management. 

The company has a strong market position in the Netherlands but is also very active internationally. For world-wide clinical trials, Analytico has formed an alliance with leading medical laboratories in the USA,  South Africa and Australia. Thanks to Eurofins, the parent company network, Analytico also commands a network of fifty specialised food and environmental laboratories in Germany, France, the UK, Switzerland and the United States. Analytico focuses on the high end of the analysis market. "As a company you can focus on simple, low-cost tests, of course. But that's where we wanted to do more on development, and we work mainly with complex test methods.  We were the first, for example, to be able to carry out BSE tests on beef cattle."

Vital responsibility

"Pharmaceuticals and the environment are the two biggest pillars; food is somewhat smaller. Studies in the context of the development and world-wide registration of medicines is our most important activity. Such studies can easily take a few years and each consists of different phases. We test the medicine using extremely sophisticated analytical methods. In principle we test only human material. We do laboratory research of blood and urine in different phases. Then we draw up reports on the analysis results.  The starting point is testing a medicine world-wide. A pharmaceutical company that comes up with a new medicine does not intend, of course, to test it in the Netherlands alone. What is involved is finding as many patients as possible to use the medicine in the test phase. We test all possible medicines. The clinical part is essentially standard research that we conduct on a patient. We indeed do specialised research as well - looking, for example, at how the medicine is broken down in the blood and what decomposition products are released. That is very complex research. Analytico is also an essential element in the last phase of the development of a medicine. Our  studies show whether an agent works or not, or whether it is dangerous or not. The report that stems from this goes to the government for the definitive registration. We provide customers with scientific information which they often use to take vital decisions. And thus cooperate on the improvement of health, a considerable responsibility'.

The tests that the food and environmental divisions conduct can ultimately have great consequences for health too. "We check food, for example,  for Salmonella and the presence of  pesticides. But we can also investigate less weighty factors.  Whether or not, for example, the synthetic vanilla used in ice cream is synthetic or real, as the packaging claims. Or things such as how many fresh oranges go into a pack of concentrated juice." The tests carried out by the environmental division are related, to an important degree, to environmental legislation. According to  Wichers, the areas of environment and food are indeed less varied than pharmacy.  "It's more routine work, comparable with a normal production process. It doesn't involve development all that much. In these areas, we chiefly play the role of quality monitor. We look into whether the lawful standards are being observed." The food and environmental areas mostly involve short-term projects. "In the environmental area, for example, we implement some three-hundred relatively small projects per day. In pharmaceuticals, things are very, very different. You're sometimes busy on the same project for years."

Medinet

In the past year Analytico has gone through a true efficiency revolution. "We began doing ten times as much for a tenth of the price. That had to be done. The competition is getting tougher and tougher. Many organisations don't survive it. We're one of the few, where that is concerned." The company is also still looking for new markets to tap. Wichers expects a sharp increase of activities, in Europe but also elsewhere. "We're now very busy with a new acquisition. We do indeed have a partner in the United States with whom we cooperate but, if you want to truly count as an international company, then you definitely have to have a branch in the United States. Right now, we're looking into the possibility of takeovers of laboratories in the United States. We don't use the name Analytico or Eurofins there, I should say, but profile ourselves as  Medinet. China has a great potential in the pharmaceutical area too. The country is rather closed, so it's difficult to get a foot on the ground there. But I'm going to China shortly, looking for a laboratory to cooperate with."

New image

Analytico provides breathing room for critical and analytical spirits. "We stimulate personal input and responsibility. We also like to see that you yourself indicate what you want in your career. There is variety in abundance: the studies and the analysis methods are always different." Through the international activities there are abundant possibilities at Analytico to work (temporarily) abroad. Without people Analytico is nothing, according to Wichers. "It's not for nothing that they account for half of our costs. We have a large number of techniques and the related equipment in house. We have to operate all that and we need highly-trained analysts to do the work. The  old view of chemists standing behind a fume cupboard with a test tube has not existed in reality for a long time. More and more they are becoming plant managers."

Despite the greater supply on the labour market in recent days, Analytico has problems filling certain positions. "It is appallingly difficult to get technically trained personnel. Mathematics and physics are unpopular fields to an increasing degree." Wichers partly blames the attitude of the government for this scarcity of workers with a science background. "They should do much more about the image that chemistry studies are difficult and dull. They should be much more active in selecting science subjects in the secondary school and in the pursuit of these studies. Such a  knowledge backlog has now arisen in this area in the Netherlands that we will have to look for well-trained personnel abroad in a few more years." It is partly for these reasons that Analytico spends relatively large sums of money on internal training courses. This applies mainly to technical-commercial positions. "These are very specific jobs. Someone has to have both a laboratory background and a feeling for the commercial field, we have noted in recent days that it works better to supply people with this supplementary training ourselves."

"It sounds like a cliché, of course, but an open and horizontal culture prevails here. And an informal atmosphere. I no longer succeed in knowing everyone personally, which I find regrettable indeed. But we've simply become too big. I do make sure that I speak with every selected applicant. Not to pass judgement but simply to get acquainted.  But I do take a little look, of course, as to whether someone is a pleasant person and fits within the organisation."

Short questions:

Car
MGB

Favourite radio or TV programme
The secret history, Donna Tart

Favourite pronouncement
Give each his own responsibility

Sit up and take notice for
A good joke

Eyes brighten up at
New developments

Sport
Golf, skiing, and horseback riding

Get energy from
A hefty debate

Spend a lot of money on
Beautiful, lasting things

Important in life
Friendship