VENLO, The Netherlands, January 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- QIAGEN GmbH, the wholly-owned German subsidiary of QIAGEN N.V. the world leading provider of solutions for preanalytical sample preparation and molecular diagnostics today announced that it was recognized with an award for being one of the ten best companies to work for. This prestigious recognition was awarded by the Corporate Research Foundation (CRF) and Geva Institut in Munich, Germany, and was sponsored by “Karriere”, a magazine published by the leading German financial newspaper “Handelsblatt”.
QIAGEN’s award was based on its ranking in areas such as work environment, personal enhancement, corporate identity and management, remuneration including performance-based compensation, as well as corporate development and image. The ranking is based on extensive surveys and interviews if employers in Germany. In its first announcement published on January 27, CRF and Geva Institut named the top 20 companies which were selected from 50 finalists.
“We are delighted to be recognized as one of the top ten best companies to work for,” said Peer Schatz, QIAGEN’s CEO. “The identification, recruitment, development and advancement of exceptional employees are key competitive factors and will increase in importance as such in the future. We have significantly stepped up our investments in this area in the last few years. Our industry-leading innovation and organic growth rates are evidence of the value of these investments also to our shareholders. One key element of job satisfaction is the ability to experience our products making a real difference in science and the quality of life. As a highly focused, science and technology driven company with a clear mission we are proud of the spirit and the awareness of every employee in the organization that they are part of our endeavour to make improvements in life possible.”
“We employees at QIAGEN take pride in our mission, our team, our capabilities and our accomplishments. Our innovative, dynamic and high performance culture is balanced with a very advanced set of work/life balancing tools,” said Michaela Riepe, a spokeswoman of QIAGEN’s employees.
“In 2006, the Company defined a further ambitious set of goals in our Corporate Goal class “Invest in People” to further increase our position as a top employer and to create satisfaction and value from this position,” said Gerhard Sohn, QIAGEN’s Vice President Global Human Resources. “QIAGEN continues to work with the employees and the employee council to provide and improve our outstanding programs for continual support and career development, competitive and performance-based compensation packages and initiatives to achieve and promote a positive work/life balance. “
QIAGEN is focused on nurturing a high-performance work environment and fuelled and balanced this with one of the most extensive personnel development, career management and benefits programs seen in the industry. Most of the programs are implemented on a global basis and cover all of QIAGEN’s more than 1500 employees. They include a Performance Enhancement System (PES) which was launched globally in 2005 to provide a clear framework for personnel and career development, various sabbatical programs and performance-oriented compensation programs including stock option plans, bonus programs and innovation incentives. In-house corporate childcare, company-sponsored fitness and medical facilities, recreational and health facilities and programs and many other features are among the wide variety of benefits, services, and programs that are designed to help employees balance their personal life with a dynamic and driven work environment.
About QIAGEN:
QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands holding company with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Italy, Australia, Norway, Austria, Canada, China, Malaysia, Sweden, and the Netherlands believes it is the world’s leading provider of innovative enabling technologies and products for molecular diagnostics solutions and preanalytical sample preparation for the separation, purification and handling of nucleic acids and proteins. QIAGEN has developed a comprehensive portfolio of more than 320 proprietary, consumable products for nucleic acid and protein separation, purification and handling, nucleic acid amplification, as well as automated instrumentation, synthetic nucleic acid products and related services. QIAGEN’s products are sold in more than 42 countries throughout the world to academic research markets and to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. In addition, QIAGEN is positioning its products for sale into developing commercial markets, including applied testing markets, clinical research, nucleic acid-based molecular diagnostics, and genetic vaccination and gene therapy. QIAGEN employs more than 1,500 people worldwide. Further information on QIAGEN can be found at www.qiagen.com.
Certain of the statements contained in this news release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to QIAGEN’s products, markets, strategy or operating results are forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with management of growth and international operations (including the effects of currency fluctuations and risks of dependency on logistics), variability of operating results, the commercial development of the applied testing markets, clinical research markets and proteomics markets, nucleic acid-based molecular diagnostics market, and genetic vaccination and gene therapy markets, competition, rapid or unexpected changes in technologies, fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN’s, products (including fluctuations due to the level and timing of customers’ funding, budgets, and other factors), difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN’s products to integrated solutions and producing such products, the ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to differentiate its products from competitors’ products, market acceptance of QIAGEN’s new products, the integration of acquisitions of technologies and businesses, and the timing of product introductions by our commercial partners. For further information, refer to the discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Qiagen N.V.
CONTACT: Contacts: Peer M. Schatz, Chief Executive Officer, QIAGEN N.V.,e-mail: peer.schatz@QIAGEN.com; Dr. Solveigh Mahler, Director InvestorRelations, QIAGEN N.V., +49-2103-29-11710, e-mail:solveigh.maehler@QIAGEN.com
