The Bangalore based health equipment manufacturer Opto Circuits (India) Ltd. (OCIL), has acquired a stent manufacturing and designing company Eurocor GmbH of Germany for a value of Rs. 59.91 crore.
Announcing this at a press meet in Mumbai today, Vinod Ramnani, chairman and managing director of OCIL said, “The acquisition would help the company to enter the global arena for stents, whose value by 2008 is estimated at $10 billion. We expect that the strong R&D base of EuroCOR will lead us in the direction of greater market share and also better margin business”
The deal was signed between Vinod Ramnani and Dr. Michael Orlowski, director and CEO of EuroCOR in Bonn, Germany.
EuroCOR, which is expected to report a top line of Rs. 21.78 crore in the current fiscal year, has 10 products in its basket and is marketed in 32 countries, including India. The company started in 1999, has products like ‘Genius Hyper’ biopolymer coated drug eluting stents, ‘Taxcor’ paclitaxel drug eluting stents, ‘Megaflex’ coronary stents, ‘Radimix’ vascular implants, ‘Joker’ vascular dialator, IP wire and eguide cobalt chromium stent etc.
According to Dr. Michael Orlowski, the carbon-coated biopolymer DES is anti-allergic and biodegradable within 30 days, when compared to the plastic used DES, which remains in the body of implanted patients. The product was found to have only 2.2 per cent restenosis in patients when compared to about 10 per cent in the case of established DES manufacturers. The company is also working to develop a new generation DES by manipulating cell signal technology, a fully biodegradable stent which would disappear from the body of patient within three months, a balloon drug eluting catheter, vascular stents covered with medicine for treatment of femoral, iliac and renal arteries, a new carotid stenting solution and a neuro radiology device for treatment of cranial vascular diseases. The products are likely to developed and marketed by 2010.
Vinod Ramani said, “We are confident of promoting EuroCOR in the Indian continent, Far East, Europe, Middle East, Central and South America. The size of the Indian market for EuroCOR’s products is expected to continue to expand in double-digit growth. We are ideally positioned to achieve a 10 per cent targeted market share for such products in the coming years.”
The product profile of OCIL includes digital thermometers, sensors, probes, pulse oxymeters, patient-monitoring systems etc. The Rs. 79 crore OCIL had acquired 60 per cent stake in Advanced Micronic Devices (AMD) in 2001, the digital thermometer division of HLL in 2002 and the patient monitoring division of Palco Labs, US in end 2003 as part of its organic growth strategy.