Nearly a decade ago, Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands fathered Philips Healthcare Services and appears determined that their subsidiary will soon become King of the medical equipment industry. This move apparently came in response to GE Medical Systems' announcement that it planned on becoming king itself of the ultrasound industry before the year 2000. Not to be "out-royaled", Philips from the first year started an acquisition frenzy so they could expand its subsidiary's product portfolio well beyond its initial product line, which started in 1918 with medical x-ray tubes.
At the end of Philips Healthcare Services first year, Philips Electronics added digital ultrasound systems to PHS's portfolio by getting ATL Ultrasound of Washington. Only two years after, in late 2000, Philips grew into nuclear medicine by absorbing ADAC Laboratories of California.
In 2001 was a very productive year as Philips went into a very high gear by obtaining two more businesses and their product lines - Agilent and Marconi Medical. By procuring Agilent Technologies Healthcare Solutions Group of Massachusetts, Philips catapulted past GE Medical as the leader of the ultrasound sector. Philips absorbed Agilent's expertise in the areas of diagnostic cardiology, automated defibrillators, patient monitoring, and point of care diagnostic systems.
Marconi Medical Systems of Ohio, formerly Picker International, was already a big player in its own right among major global CT suppliers. With Marconi, Philips gained cutting-edge multi-slice CT technology along with cardiology, oncology and PET/CT imaging applications. These two acquisitions in 1 year landed Philips in the top 3 for the entire medical equipment industry along with giants Siemens and GE Medical - some say as number two.
Back in 2005, the growth continued as Philips bought Stentor, Inc. of California, provider of best-in-class picture archiving and communications systems (PACS). This move allowed Philips to aid its clients successfully manage the many amounts of imaging data created by its medical scanners. Then, the following year, the growth continued as Philips adopted Witt Biomedical Corporation, the largest independent supplier of Cath Lab monitoring and reporting systems.
In its pursuit to be crowned King of the Medical Equipment industry, Philips Healthcare Services has obtained 6 businesses since its inception in 1998. Every single one of the 6 has stretched Philips' offerings to include a total of ten medical imaging modalities, from CT to MRI to x-ray, along with defibrillation and cardiac monitoring equipment plus image and information management solutions.
So, has Philips moved into the royal industry castle yet? Some believe so. In fact, before the last two acquisitions, Palo Alto's "growth consulting" company Frost & Sullivan thought so. In 2004 Frost & Sullivan announced they were giving Philips 5 awards for "technology and services innovation and industry leadership". Philips was recognized for making distinguished contributions to the cardiac resuscitation and medical imaging industries and for providing leadership in these market segments.
Was Frost & Sullivan just searching for a place at the royal court or were these genuine kudos? Probably the later. F&S held interviews with a myriad of market players along with their customers and suppliers, and reportedly did great research into the medical equipment technology field.
One of the 5 awards included the regent-like titles of "Medical Imaging Company of the Year", "New Care Setting of the Year", and "Medical Imaging Technology of the Year". The other two were for Technology Leadership and Services Innovation Leadership.
The response of Jouko Karvinen, of Philips Medical Systems, to the awards sounded like the exact same of an industry coronation speech. He stated, "We proudly accept the Frost Sullivan Awards as an independent validation of Philips business and technology leadership. These 5 awards are further indicators that Philips continues to set the industry standard for developing innovative products that help treat patients and save lives."
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Jesse Fisher is webmaster for TransAmerican Medical, the largest independent provider of refurbished
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