Agilent to exit nuclear magnetic resonance business

Agilent Technologies has announced the strategic step of closing down its nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) business, a market it entered in 2010.

The company will stop taking new NMR system orders with immediate effect, but customer commitments for orders in progress and ongoing support contracts will continue to be honoured. Agilent will also still be providing services pertaining to all installed NMR systems.

Agilent bought into this business area with the acquisition of Varian four years ago, but is now choosing to focus on higher-growth areas in order to bolster profitability and shore up the performance of its research products division.

This follows the discontinuation of the firm's OEM and specialty magnet business, and later the MRI business, in 2013.

Mike McMullen, president and chief operating officer of Agilent and chief executive officer-elect, said: "This action is a step in ensuring that our investments are placed on higher-value life sciences, applied markets and diagnostics solutions that will continue to drive growth across the company."

Agilent recently separated into two separate companies with the recent spinoff of its electronic measurement business into an independent firm called Keysight Technologies.