Our Local History
VWR is a relatively new name in the laboratory supply marketplace. However, a company with so much history and heritage behind it is anything but new..
- Dating back to the 1700s, the business started with a number of drug and chemical companies, who then evolved into the British Drug Houses Company in 1909.
- By the late 1960s laboratory reagents and chemicals had become the core business. These drug ranges were then sold to Glaxo and the chemicals business became BDH Chemicals, then subsequently BDH Ltd.
- In 1987 a host of British instrument and apparatus companies merged under the name of ‘Baird & Tatlock’, which were then integrated with BDH Ltd.
- The Merck Group acquired the BDH group in 1973; however the company name was not changed until 1990 when all the businesses were consolidated as Merck Ltd. Within our laboratory supplies business, the name BDH has been retained as a brand name due to the famous AnalaR, ARISTAR, HiPerSolv and other chemicals.
Jencons-PLS was acquired by VWR International in April 2008 and the systems of the two companies were fully integrated by October of that year. Jencons‘ expertise was originally in glassblowing and the supply of basic laboratory ware. However, the company rapidly expanded, gaining a worldwide reputation as a producer of liquid handling products and growing to be one of the UK’s largest independent providers of laboratory consumables and general lab supplies. With the acquisition of Prior Laboratory Supplies in 1997 the approach to the UK market changed and Jencons-PLS became more of a specialist in the supply of laboratory equipment, offering a choice of solutions to Universities, Medical Schools, Pharmaceutical Companies and many other establishments. The Jencons-PLS UK sales team now effectively operates as the Capital Equipment Specialist team within VWR UK bringing many years of experience and a wealth of knowledge to the organisation.
|
