Thermo Fisher Scientific, a global player in serving science, has revenues of $12 billion and boasts of approximately 39,000 employees worldwide. It serves customers within the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, and also has a substantial presence in environmental and process control industries.

With revenues worth $1.8 billion coming from emerging markets and the Asia Pacific (which is also growing at the rate of 20 percent), the company has several strategies in place for the region, such as scaling up its commercial teams to drive growth; optimizing supply chain, service and commercial operations to differentiate the customer experience; continue to invest in localized technology development, and expanding low cost region manufacturing footprint in order to reach new heights.

In an exclusive interview with BioSpectrum, Mr Marc N Casper, president and chief executive officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific since 2009, shared the company's strategies on investments related to research and development, acquisitions, growth for the emerging markets, pricing and regulatory issues.

Thermo Fisher Scientific increased investments on acquisitions and purchasing property from $837 million in 2009 to $5.967 billion in 2011. How much investments have you set aside for 2012?
Actually, since 2009 we have generated about $10 billion in capital from our free cash flow and deployed about $ 7 billion for acquisitions. While we cannot disclose what acquisitions we may be making in the future, Thermo Fisher has a proven track record of achieving objectives associated with operating income through revenue and cost synergies, and tax efficiencies.

Do you say that your focus will now be more on acquisition?
Thermo Fisher looks at organic as well as inorganic routes to growth. We have been investing in acquisitions that help us to enhance our offering to our customers and increase our access to growing markets worldwide.