Greiner Diagnostic
History
It started in Switzerland, a country also well known for the technical creativity.
Rudolf Greiner was such a person. He started with some brilliant ideas in the field of a typical Swiss domain, in the big and very successful watch making industry.
But after getting acquainted with the famous professor of clinical chemistry R.Richterich he changed into the field of medical diagnostics. The demand for analytical support in medicine was growing, and Richterich had the idea of an automation of the daily routine in a clinical lab.
To realize this idea into a working technical system was the part of Rudolf Greiner. So, finally in 1973 they launched the first automated and fully selective analyzer for clinical chemistry, the GSA. And since today that principle is still the bases of all modern clinical analyzers.
The following years were a story of growth and success, and the Greiner company and its business grew, too. They developed more and bigger machines, but parallel to the technical part there was also another improvement, namely that of the needed reagents:
It was quite important that the reagents were simple to handle and had a good stability. That was the birth of the “Greiner reagents”.
But many years later in 1990 there was a break in the Greiner history. Through heavy competition for example from Japanese manufacturers the Greiner instrument production went down and finally in 1990 had to stop. The analyzer business became “frozen”. The manufacturing of reagents however continue and in 2004 even made a step forward again, when the German Greiner GmbH was founded in Bahlingen, southern Germany.
A group of experience people from the medical diagnostic field started the production and the marketing of reagents, especially liquid ones, under the Greiner label, but also for numerous so called OEM customers.
Finally, the Greiner sleeping instrument domain woke up again: there is a cooperation with external technical partners, and a number of instruments, from to quite big ones, was launched under the Greiner label.
And last not least there is the prototype of the innovative clinical chemistry analyzer still waiting in the Swiss Greiner branch, for revival and finishing, maybe in cooperation with an investor partner:
The Greiner flexible analyzer “GFA” may be the continuation of a Greiner story.