Icomes LabManufacturer & Origin
Icomes Lab Co., Ltd. is a Japanese precision-engineering manufacturer founded on 28 May 2003 and headquartered in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The company specialises in liquid-handling devices built around its proprietary micro-actuator technology, co-developed with Iwate University.
Product Range
- pipetty — a pen-type electronic pipette, light enough to be used like a writing instrument
- Auto Pipette — electronic pipetting for repetitive protocols
- Tofutty — a dispenser engineered for high-viscosity liquids
- Micro Tube Pump System — compact precision fluid transfer
- Plastic-moulded micro actuators — the core component technology, also supplied for integration
- Specialised systems — image-processing measurement systems, drug-delivery devices and nucleic acid extraction kits
Brand Story
Icomes Lab is a story of one technology applied well. The company’s foundation is a patented micro-actuator — a miniature drive system using plastic gears, developed jointly with Iwate University — that allows precise mechanical motion to be packaged into devices far smaller and lighter than conventional designs.
The clearest expression of that idea is the pipetty electronic pipette. By building the drive around the micro-actuator, Icomes produced an electronic pipette in the form of a pen: for researchers performing hundreds of pipetting operations a day, the reduction in weight and hand strain is a genuine ergonomic advance, and the design earned the company a Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award in Japan’s 8th Monodzukuri (Manufacturing) Grand Award.
The company’s credibility in Japanese science runs deep: it counts RIKEN, The University of Tokyo and Kyoto University among its collaborators, and partners with major Japanese instrument corporations including Topcon, Olympus and Hamamatsu Photonics. For a small regional manufacturer from Iwate, that roster testifies to the value of the underlying engineering.