Essel Propack forays into medical devices business

Essel Propack, world’s largest manufacturer of laminated tubes, with manufacturing in 13 countries through 21 plants, is acquiring 85% stake in Tacpro Inc., USA, and Avalon Medical Services Pte Ltd, Singapore. The companies are proven players in the field of advanced medical device design & development and offer over 100+ years of collective experience in the medical device industry.

Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Essel Group, while declaring the strategic intent, stated, “I have always held a firm belief close to my heart. Faith in Innovation and Organized Growth. It is by walking this path that Essel Group has reached the position it holds today. Giving birth and nurturing Industries which no one thought would exist. And today, once again Essel has proved that its Faith is as strong as ever before. This is just a humble step towards a brighter morrow. A morrow with endless opportunities, promising future and unlimited growth.” While announcing the acquisition in Mumbai, Ashok Goel, the Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Essel Propack said, “Medical Devices arena is our new & third horizon, after Laminated Tubes and Plastic Tubes. Our objective is to leverage our knowledge of polymers and polymer processing so as to add a new dimension to our business. While it offers endless opportunities and potential for growth, it is in sync with our knowledge & capabilities, strengths and core competence of both Essel Propack and Tacpro.” Nitin Matani, CEO, Tacpro said, “This is the coming together of two pioneering entities, with a common objective to leverage the collective strengths for global excellence. This is the first step towards realizing my vision of bringing India to the forefront of the medical device industry. By combining Essel Propack’s resources and expertise in high volume manufacturing, this partnership will also allow us to fulfill that vision by providing expanded services to our global customers.”

Since its inception, Tacpro is a provider of innovative medical device designs, converting ideas into medical device solutions. They pioneered as the first full-service provider of high quality medical devices specializing in catheters and delivery systems on the West Coast of USA. Serving a worldwide marketplace, the Company is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the center of engineering ideas. Today, the Company is the world leader in OEM balloon catheters. Tacpro is an ISO certified company equipped with a vertically integrated quality system. The company’s U.S. operations are focused on design, engineering services and rapid prototyping. They have also established a superior manufacturing base, Avalon Medical Services, in Singapore. The range of capabilities includes engineering services, product development, stent delivery systems and manufacturing solutions. To put it in a nut shell, Tacpro is a single source solution company. Some of the offerings are : Coronary, peripheral, aortic and intracranial angioplasty catheters and guidewires; valvuloplasty; metallic and non-metallic stent delivery system; drug and radioisotope delivery; laser energy delivery; electrophysiology, thrombectomy, fertility/infertility devices and intravascular sheaths.

Essel Propack, Tacpro and Avalon have huge synergies notably the knowledge of polymers & polymer processing and global benchmark technology. On this significant development, Doug Wilkins, Vice President – Operations at Tacpro spoke, "This partnership will enable Tacpro to meet the high quality expectations of the medical device market while continuing on its path to be a worldwide leader in Medical Devices." Everyway that one looks at it, this acquisition is an ideal fit and a perfect balance with the current businesses because of high asset turnover, low capital intensity and B2B nature. This is a recession proof industry with a high growth rate. Medical Devices is not developed in Asia, which is a thickly populated market and a virtual Greenfield. Figuratively, the global medical devices market size is USD 172.6 billion. Of this, the contract manufacturing comprise USD 16.7 billion. The catheter market alone is about USD 5.7 billion of which the USA has USD 2.3 billion share. The industry growth is estimated at 7%-10%. Jeff Kraus, Vice President - Engineering, Tacpro said,“ This is an awesome opportunity to be able to provide our services to a larger and wider market.”

The present team at the Company, headed by Nitin Matani, the Chief Executive Officer, will continue to manage the operations of the Company, under             the guidance of Essel Propack.

Sourced From : Essel Propack