Tomtec Inc.

Tomtec has succeeded since 1967 by working with its clients to help solve their liquid handling needs. From 1967 to 1981, the Company had essentially one employee, Tom Astle. From 1967 to 1971, the Company operated as Astec, Inc. In 1971 the Company's name was changed to Tomtec, and incorporated. Tom Astle has been the President and CEO since that time.

In 1967, Tomtec developed the Autotiter. This automated what were then the manual microtiter techniques. The primary market was serology and virology. The original instruments were an essential element of Smith Kline's rubella vaccine program.

In 1972, Tomtec developed an automated "Microstainer". Tomtec brought the product line to market and sold initial production runs. Later this product line was sold to Dynatech. The next endeavor was the development of the Autostreaker. This instrument fully automated the primary plating process in clinical microbiology. The Company built and sold five systems immediately.

Industry experience and contacts led Tomtec to create and build custom made systems for automating pharmaceutical research. These systems were primarily used for automating soil screen programs. Automated agar cutting systems were made for Schering and Lilly. Then, a fully automated colony picking system was created and built for Bristol-Myers. Concurrently, Tomtec created and manufactured and automated instrument to rehydrate dry antibiotic microtiter plates for MicroScan. Two hundred instruments were manufactured and sold through Baxter/American Scientific Products.