By Mike Gottschalk and Maria Ofitserova

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the site of Pittcon 2019 and Pickering Laboratories was one of over 1,000 exhibitors at the convention center.  As Philadelphia is centered between the New York and Washington D.C., the location brought us close to many of our customers and soon-to-be customers particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. 

Maria, Rebecca and I spent three days exhibiting and providing information on the latest post-column derivatization applications, not to mention showing off all the new products in our Pickering Test Solutions product line.  Our promotional giveaways were a big hit and we greatly underestimated how popular the Pickering yoga mats and exercise balls would be!  Hopefully you stopped by our booth early if you enjoy a good workout while you travel.

We are always pleased by the amount of interested people who stop by to discuss our Product Testing Solutions. We often hear “I didn’t know you made artificial perspiration?”  They will ask us to explain the many types of consumer products that need to be tested with perspiration as well as saliva, urine and other simulated body fluids. You might have noticed that for the last three years, we’ve tried a “sweaty” theme for our show giveaways!  It’s been a great way to promote discussions about product testing and how important it is for almost every industry to evaluate materials with artificial bodily fluids.

One of the new focuses for our post-column research and development has been the growing market for Cannabis related products and the testing of Cannabis.  This field (pun intended?) has shown increasing and sustained interest in cannabinoids and contaminants testing.  There’s good interest in the post-column applications we’ve developed for these matrices, and it reflects the industry demand for verified testing applications.  Highlighted at the show were our applications for the Analysis of Mycotoxins in Cannabis and the Analysis of Cannabinoids in Cannabis and Cannabis-containing Edible Products.

While at Pittcon, we hosted a daily raffle at our booth.  Each expo day, we chose a winner for a pair of Bose “Sleepbuds” – noise cancelling earbuds specifically designed to help the wearer get awesome sleep!  Congratulations to our winners William Collin from General Motors, Brent Hanlin from ALS, and Keith Saroka from the Interboro School District.  This picture really captures how pleased these lucky winners were!

Thank you to everyone who came by the booth to visit with us in Philly this year – we had so much fun chatting with you all!  And of course, if you ever want more information between shows, we’re always adding fun new things to our website and introducing new products in our quarterly newsletter.  Please email support@pickeringlabs.com to discuss any new applications with Maria or another of our amazing chemists!