GEORGE TOWN: Local medical device manufacturers and distributors are planning for growth as original equipment manufacturers (OEM), riding on the annual double-digit percentage increase in domestic medical device consumption and overseas demand.

Dispo-Med Sdn Bhd, CT Frank Technology Sdn Bhd and UWC Holdings Bhd are some of the small and medium-sized local companies which are bullish about their companies’ prospects.

Kuala Lumpur-based Dispo-Med, which manufactures Class 2 capnography equipment used to monitor the concentration of carbon dioxide in respiratory gases, for one, expects its revenue to hit RM11.5mil in 2014 from RM7.5mil this year.

Besides capnography equipment, Dispo-Med also manufactures respitory care, anesthesiology and infusion therapy instruments under its Dispo-Med brand name besides catering to the OEM market.

“By 2015, we expect to achieve RM19.5mil in revenue.

“The overseas market in the United States and Australia contributes 95% of our revenue, while the domestic sector generates the remainder,” Dispo-Med managing director N C Leow told StarBiz.

Leow said the company was currently exploring the possibility of providing OEM services for US-based medical device companies.

“We are already providing OEM services to a few overseas medical device companies,” he said.

To tap into the US market, Dispo-Med will exhibit its new capnography equipment at the American Society Anesthesiology Exhibition in San Francisco in October and at the Medica Exhibition in Dusseldorf in November.

“In June, Dispo-Med will move to a new premise, Sina Damansara Technology Park, which has a production capacity three times of the present plant at Sunway Damansara Technology Park,” he added.

CT Frank, which recently diversified into the medical device sector, meanwhile, is tapping into the unexplored market for visualisation tables to expand its business.

Chief executive officer Roland Beh Cheng Siong said the company had just been appointed as the sole distributor in South-East Asia for the Sectra visualisation table, a renowned brand name from Sweden.

“The market size of visualisation tables in the country is estimated to be RM200mil, based on the fact that there are 220 public and private hospitals and 32 private and public medical colleges,” he said.

The Sectra visualisation table generates three-dimensional images of MRI and CT scans to help doctors diagnose better.

“We expect this business to spearhead the company’s revenue in 2014,” he said.

Beh said the company also planned to manufacture the hardware components of the visualisation table for Sectra. “One of the company’s core business is the assembly of large commercial display screens.

“We are leveraging on this expertise to assemble touch-screen panels for Sectra, using the latest capacitive film sensor technology, which enables the three-dimensional images to appear faster.

“Our touch-screen panel is now undergoing evaluation by Sectra,” Beh shared.

CT Frank’s core business is in the manufacturing of household appliances and large commercial display screens.

This year, CT Frank, which manufactures from an RM14mil plant in Taiping, is projecting to achieve RM72mil in revenue, compared to the RM62mil achieved in 2012.

Precision component and electro-mechanical part manufacturer UWC Holdings Sdn Bhd is also emerging as an OEM for medical devices in the country, having recently secured new contracts from medical device multinational corporations (MNCs).

Group managing director Datuk Ng Chai Eng said the projects included lifters and diffusion pumps.

“We are working with US companies to design and develop lifters and produce diffusion pumps, which are Class A low-risk medical devices.

“Production for the lifters, used for lifting patients, will kick off in September this year,” Ng said.

He added that UWC was also currently negotiating with a Finnish company to produce dental chairs.

“If the deal is inked, we will make dental chairs in the third quarter of this year. The initial production is for 500 units for the Malaysian market.

“The product will be sold under a Finnish brand name, which is well known in the market,” he said.

These new products will help the group’s medical device and equipment business to contribute 50% of its revenue by 2018, according to Ng.

According to the latest Association of Malaysian Medical Industries, or AMMI, report, the medical devices market in Malaysia is worth 1% of the total US market.

The domestic consumption of medical devices is expected to grow by 50.4% to reach US$1.7bil (RM5.2bil) in 2015, from US$1.13bil (RM3.44bil) in 2010, according to the report.

This means the local market is growing at about 10% annually, with a domestic consumption of about US$1.46bil projected for 2013.

“More than 85% of the medical devices in Malaysia are imported, mostly from the US. The majority of the medical devices currently produced in Malaysia belong to Class 1 non-invasive and Class 2 semi-invasive products.” the report stated.

source:thestaronline