Member Article

Vernacare announces major Indian trade deal on PM visit

Bolton-based medical products manufacturer Vernacare has agreed a five-year supply deal with Manipal, one of Asia’s largest healthcare management groups.

The multi-million pound deal was unveiled as the Prime Minister led a trade mission to India to show off the best of British small and medium sized companies to Indian investors.

Vernacare expects sales in India to exceed £11 million over the next three years and is exploring the creation of an Indian manufacturing base to underpin growth.

Manipal Healthcare is the first hospital group in India to introduce Vernacare’s environmentally friendly single-use infection prevention system, which reduces the risk of cross infection when toileting and washing patients.

Prime Minister Theresa May said: “This is fantastic news for Vernacare whose state-of-the-art products help save lives across the world every day. Already operating in 96 per cent of hospitals in the UK – I hope the Vernacare will continue to go from strength to strength at home and here in India. British companies like Vernacare show how we lead the way as one of the world’s greatest trading nations and that UK business and innovation is hard to beat.”

Emma Sheldon, Vernacare’s Group Marketing Director and Group Board Director of the UK India Business Council, said: “This export contract marks our entry into the vast and innovative Indian healthcare sector and we expect our attendance on this trip to further strengthen business within India. We also have strong interest in our infection prevention system from two other leading Asian healthcare groups, who are trialling our best practice method of safe and hygienic patient toileting and washing.”

Vernacare is due to open a new service centre in Bangalore, creating high quality engineering jobs to support installation, commissioning and servicing of its technology. It is anticipated that service centres will be set up in every major Indian city.

Dr. Nagendra Swamy, Group Medical Director and Chairman of Quality Council of Manipal Health Enterprises, said: “Our group hospitals are renowned for pioneering modern technologies in medicine and treatment. We are proud to partner with Vernacare to introduce the renowned single-use method of human waste management to India. We are already utilising this in five of our hospitals. This is accepted as a best practice method of infection prevention by global accreditation bodies and it will help us in our continued drive to set the highest standards of patient care and clinical excellence.”

Vernacare’s single-use human waste management system was invented in Bolton and is still designed and manufactured here. It is used by 96% of NHS Trusts and healthcare facilities in 48 countries – helping to reduce the risk of patients contracting MRSA, C.diff, E.coli, Norovirus, Ebola, and other potentially deadly infections.

In 2015 the Vernacare management team completed a management buyout of the business, backed by leading UK Private Equity firm, Palatine.

Further information: www.vernacare.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Vernacare .