Waters Corporation announced on March 9th, 1998 that it signed an exclusive agreement with Eli Lilly (Indianapolis, IN) to become Lilly's sole provider of liquid chromatography data management software. Eli Lilly & Company will use Waters Millennium software (32-bit version) for drug development and quality assurance (QA) purposes worldwide. According to the pact between the two companies, Lilly will invest an undisclosed sum of money over the next five years in software and associated equipment to convert some 1300 liquid chromatographs to Waters Millennium chromatography software. (It would appear that Eli Lilly has found a way to purge their labs of the EZChrom software product along with the newer Shimadzu Class VP software release.)

Waters was originally selected as a preferred global vendor of liquid chromatographs in October of 1997. Incredibly, Shimadzu was also named as a supplier to Eli Lilly according to a carefully crafted company statement issued November 4th, 1997. In retrospect, there is more news in what Shimadzu didn't proclaim in that press release versus what they did say! While Shimadzu was selected as "a supplier," there was no mention of what kind of HPLC products that Shimadzu would be supplying! In addition, Shimadzu neglected to disclose that they were actually one of three preferred vendors for HPLC products to Eli Lilly. One might infer from the original company statement that Shimadzu was "the only supplier" of HPLC products to Eli Lilly.... nothing could be farther from the truth!

We wouldn't classify Shimadzu's press release of November 4, 1997 as being contemptuous, deceitful, haughty, insidious, misleading, presumptuous or serpentine, but we would characterize Shimadzu has NOT being forthcoming and straightforward yet again! It's been noted before that Shimadzu personnel have a propensity to tell you the things that you want to hear but they won't necessarily tell you the things that you need to hear! Shimadzu is a virtual nobody in HPLC & FPLC according to several noteworthy studies conducted by Phortech International since 1994/95. Frankly, in light of Waters selection as "the preferred global chromatography standard" for Eli Lilly & Company, what will be left for Shimadzu to supply.... waste bottles or plastic tubing perhaps?

n.b. Waters Corporation has worldwide leading positions in three cutting-edge analytical technologies.... specifically HPLC, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis.

n.b. Waters Corporation believes that Millennium software is the world's leading chromatography data management product with an installed base of 18,000 copies.

n.b. Consider reading the testimonial of an FDA scientist and his candid observations about EZChrom's vices!