History

Around 1880 Urias Shatz founded a pharmacy goods store in Jaunjelgava (then Friedrichstadt). Since then, chemistry and allied professions became the tradition of the family. His sons’ companies were founded in big cities – Riga and Lodz (Poland). Great attention was paid to education – young people graduated from the University of Tartu and Moscow, Riga and Paris. Among them were pharmacists, chemical engineers, chemistry teachers and scientists. They studied alkaloids (at the end of the 19th century), worked in biotechnology on alternative fuel extraction methods (20th century), studied chromatographic patterns and dealt with stereospecific organic synthesis (the end of the 20th century). Interest in chemistry also shaped commercial activities. Descendants of U. Shatz owned a pharmacy store, a clinical laboratory, manufactured cosmetics, and rubber goods, built experimental devices for chemical manufacturing. In 1940 private business was forbidden in Latvia, and they ceased to exist.

At the end of the 1980-ies the situation began to change and signs of economic liberalization appeared. At the time, Victor Shatz was engaged in chromatographic research in the Latvian Institute of Organic Chemistry. Apart from theoretical results, some serious practical know-how was accumulated, which was used in company TETRA operation. In 1988-1991 this company produced materials for chromatography (stationary phases, solid phase extraction equipment, reagents and standards) and introduced previously unknown products in the former USSR. This way first commercial experience was gained in that generation.

In 1992 Millipore Corporation decided to set up a distribution network in the Baltics. Millipore products range included equipment and materials for liquid chromatography and filtration. Victor Shatz was offered to become a Millipore dealer in Latvia. In October 1993 Fanex was established. Starting introduction of modern equipment, the central ideas were to base our efforts on the employees’ specific professional knowledge and experience in relevant sectors, and to develop full service potential in areas of expertise. Each employee who came to work with us in those years brought his practical expertise to the company.

Since 1993 Fanex grew into a leading company in the Latvian market of analytical equipment, calibration services, industrial equipment and accessories, servicing of equipment, design and manufacture of customized systems to customer orders. The company has participated in large-scale projects in industry and laboratories, some of which exceeded one million lats threshold.