Formerly CE Instruments and Carlo Erba Instruments , Milan, Italy are now a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Leading the world in high-tech instruments, Thermo Fisher Scientific helps life science, laboratory and industrial customers advance scientific knowledge, enable drug discovery, improve manufacturing processes, and protect the environment with instruments, scientific equipment, and sample-in/knowledge-out solutions.

Our History...

	1853	Carlo Erba, was one of the most important European chemical and pharmaceutical Companies and was struggling to re-start again its production and to re-establish its position in Europe at the end of world war two.
	1955	Carlo Erba Scientific Instruments Division (SID) starts an industrial production of first gas   chromatography called Fractovap A.
	1969	Cooperation with Kurt Grob CE SID finally succeeded to introduce the first genuine Grob split-splitless injector paving the way to results unachievable before particularly in trace analysis which in those years was the major Grob’s application area in the field of environmental pollution and tobacco smoke analysis by GC and GC/MS.
	1974	Carlo Erba SID was established as an independent legal entity, named Carlo Erba Strumentazione S.p.A., still 100% owned by the mother Company, which was an Italian public Company.
	1975	The first capillary dedicated instrument- the Fractovap 2900- was designed and introduced on the market place.
	1978	Following the recommendations and suggestions coming from the cooperation with Kurt Grob and his “family”  developed the Fractovap 4160, the first commercially available GC with a unique cold on-column injector for true quantitative capillary gas chromatography.
	1985	Carlo Erba Strumentazione S.p.A. was acquired by Fisons plc which, in 1990 also acquired VG Instruments and formed the Fisons Scientific Instruments Division (developed GC 5000 Mega and GC 6000 Vega).
	1992	Carlo Erba Strumentazione, due to the clauses of the contract of sales, lost the right to use the name “Carlo Erba”, which remained exclusive property of the previous owner. The Company changed its name to Fisons Instruments SpA and partially lost its identity on the market (developed GC 8000 series 1, 2 and GC 8000Top).
	1994	Still keeping the legal name of Fisons Instruments SpA, the Company brand name was changed into the present one, CE Instruments (CE=Chemistry Equipment, but for customers was always Carlo Erba...).
	1996	As consequence of the Thermo Instruments acquisition of Fisons Instruments  the Company  was integrated into ThermoQuest and changed again its legal name, which is now “ThermoQuest Italia SpA” (developed Trace GC).
	2001	ThermoQuest Italia SpA changed again in "ThermoFinnigan Italia SpA".
	2004	ThermoFinnigan SpA changed name definitively in “Thermo Electron SpA”.
	2006	After the acquisition by Thermo Electron of Fisher Scientific the Company brand name has changed into Thermo Fisher Scientific while still keeping the legal name of Thermo Electron SpA.

Last update: November 13, 2006 by webmaster@ceinstruments.it