Healthcare company opens UK headquarters in Leeds

Healthcare 21 (HC21), one the UK and Ireland’s largest privately owned healthcare companies, has opened a UK headquarters in Leeds city centre with plans to almost double group turnover to €100m by the end of 2018.

As part of these plans HC21 has just signed an agreement with Acelity, a global wound care and regenerative medicine company. The agreement allows for the exclusive distribution of certain surgical portfolio products in Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.

The new Leeds office has been set up predominantly as a sales and marketing hub and has resulted in a number of key appointments including business development director David Plotts, who is tasked with spearheading continued UK and European growth.

Plotts said: “This is an exciting time at Healthcare 21 a lot has been achieved in a relatively short time frame in the highly regulated medical technology and healthcare products sector. We are now looking to maintain growth organically both in the UK and Ireland and also by launching Pan-European operations this year in Austria and Germany and next year in Scandinavia.

“We take-over a head office in Germany with plans to develop a 13 strong sales force across Germany, Austria and Luxembourg, three managers and a marketing support team all overseen by a sales and marketing director.

“We have ambitious plans to almost double group sales to 100m euros inside the next three years and this is a confident first step toward achieving that.”

Healthcare 21 UK was set up four years ago by UK managing director David Frederick following the success of its Irish parent company launched in 2003 by Chairman Owen Curtin.

Annual turnover of the UK business is now at €22m (£17m), with group sales over €65m (£50m) employing 190 staff across both businesses with 25 based in the UK.

Frederick is a former vice-president of sales at Covidien, now part of Medtronic the world’s largest medical technology company, where he was responsible for 700 staff and a £700m turnover.

Frederick said: “I have known Owen and many of the members of our senior management team at Healthcare 21 for many years and it is that shared experience and trust which I believe has been the secret to the exceptional growth.

“During this period we have continually reinvested in our business so that now we are well positioned to launch operations across Northern Europe and Scandinavia, building on the success in the UK and Ireland. As the deal with Acelity proves, we are looking at acquisition as a means to grow and strengthen our position with one eye on becoming an original equipment manufacturer ourselves in the longer term.”

With Frederick at the helm, the UK business went from a standing start to £10m sales in its first two years from 2012 to 2014, almost doubling again in the two years following that, to its current level.

Frederick added: “We have been fortunate in the sense that there has been a lot of consolidation in the medical device and healthcare product sector, partly as a result of the recession, causing a lot of centralisation among the major players.

“This has led to an increased demand for our services, where we can provide existing on the ground sales teams, specialist market knowledge and significant logistics capacity.

“Because of our hard won expertise and significant ongoing investment in the business we are, unusually I think for a distributor, fully transparent with our partners.

“Large multi-national organisations’ that have merged or been acquired are looking for a safe pair of hands to provide a sales focus on certain areas of their product portfolio’s as their commercial priorities change and evolve. Smaller companies can find it very beneficial to use our existing on the ground sales networks and operations rather than subsidise their own, protecting their profit margins.”

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