HOYA (TOKYO:7741) today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire a majority shareholding in Wassenburg Group, an Automated Endoscope Reprocessing (AER) market leader in the Netherlands. The planned closing date is November 1, 2013.
“Wassenburg has found the best possible partner in HOYA”
This strategic acquisition enables HOYA through its division PENTAX Medical to give its global customers complete access to a superior and wider portfolio in the field of flexible endoscopy from Endoscopes to AERs. The same synergies will also be driven by Wassenburg as the respective installed base customers and new customers will have a wider portfolio to benefit from.
Flexible endoscopy is approximately a $2.5B market globally and growing at an average 8 – 10% annually. The AER market is approximately a $1.0B market globally and growing at 10% – 12% annually. With this joint venture HOYA will now have access to a $3.5B market globally and also heralds a shift from a capital equipment company to enter the segment of consumables too.
The growth of the endoscopy market is driven by changing demographics, new minimally invasive procedures, new diagnostic technologies and new therapeutic endoscopic procedures which are increasing the number of endoscopy procedures. At the same time every endoscope after clinical use must be decontaminated with the same degree of rigor following every endoscopic procedure to prevent cross-contamination of patients. This underscores the importance of endoscope reprocessing and following disinfection guidelines to attain best practice and improve patient care. The trend in the market is the shift from manual to standardized automated reprocessing of endoscopes and presents a great growth opportunity.
This joint venture is about product synergies, channel synergies and geographic expansion. Wassenburg Medical Devices has direct operations and significant presence in western European countries with their leading edge AERs. Through this strategic alliance with HOYA they will now have a platform for entry in the world’s largest Endoscopy market, the USA and also into the emerging markets of Asia Pacific, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Middle East Africa. This strategic deal not only widens the portfolio for the HOYA customers but also offers a platform for growth into new markets and new segments.
“This is a great match for us and a significant step forward for our global endoscopy strategy,” said Jayant Saha, Senior Vice President, Global BD, PENTAX Medical, HOYA Group. “Wassenburg is a fantastic company. Their management have done a great job building the company and we look forward to taking advantage of the strengths of our combined companies as we expand the product offerings globally into existing and new markets.”
The transaction will involve the purchase of more than 50 percent of the shares of Wassenburg Group. The share acquisition is the latest step in HOYA’s plan to gain share in all markets globally and the widening of the product portfolio positions HOYA to capture market share everywhere.
“Instilling greater clinical confidence by delivering high performance, reliability and value to our customers is at the core of everything we do,” said Ganesh Ramaswamy, Global President, PENTAX Medical. “Now PENTAX Medical along with Wassenburg look forward to offering seamless product offerings in the field of Endoscopy to our customers.”
“We have built Wassenburg into the number one AER company in the Netherlands.” said Arno Wassenburg, MD of Wassenburg Medical Devices BV. “This is a wonderful next step for our business, our customers and shareholders. Our customers will gain tremendous value from the ability to access a total endoscopy portfolio that this deal ensures.”
“Wassenburg has found the best possible partner in HOYA” said Ronald Wassenburg, MD of Wassenburg Medical Devices BV. “It’s been a privilege to help build Wassenburg, now we will grow our global presence and market share even more by leveraging the global strength of HOYA.”
“Any time two leadership companies like HOYA and Wassenburg pair together to offer a technologically superior and wider portfolio, the customer benefits,” said Girts Cimermans, COO, HOYA Lifecare. “Our strategic joint venture will bring new synergies in the market and benefit both companies’ leadership products.”
