Maybe it’s a sign that the hospital capital spending market is on its way back. Consumer electronics giant Samsung (SEO:005930) plans to drop $1.1 billion on medical imaging companies in the coming decade as it looks to bump shoulders with the likes of Philips Healthcare (NYSE:PHG), GE Healthcare (NYSE:GE) and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI), according to Reuters.
Samsung is in “contact” with some companies, senior vice president Jo Jae Moon told the news service. The Korean firm has already announced plans to spend $1.1 billion in the medical equipment business by 2020, as chairman Lee Kun Hee aims to build the division into a $94.19 billion operation.
“Demand for expensive medical equipment will keep growing,” Shinhan Investment Corp. analyst Bae Ki Dal told the news service. “The market is mostly dominated by foreign companies now. It will be interesting to see how Samsung will compete with them.”
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MassDevice Staff Website The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
Samsung made its biggest health care buy last year with a $312 million acquisition of a 43.5 percent stake in diagnostic ultrasound devices maker Medison Co. and all of Prosonic from Consus Asset Management Co. (the company has since increased its stake in Medison to 65.8 percent).
“We have a lot of companies on our list, and we’ve been contacting most of them,” Jo said, adding that Samsung targets small, overseas-based firms with niche technology. “We’ll continue to meet them and negotiate. We have a target to be the No. 1 across ultrasound devices, X-rays and MRIs.”
That would put it up against some of the biggest players in medical technology. GE Healthcare, ranked third on the MassDevice Big 100 list of the world’s largest medical device makers, posted sales of $16.9 billion last year; Siemens Healthcare was fourth on the list, just behind with sales of $16.77 billion last year; and Philips Healthcare took the eighth spot with 2010 sales of $11.41 billion.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
