HOYA Group to Set Up Joint Venture with Wassenburg Medical Devices in the Field of Endoscopy

HOYA announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire a majority shareholding in Wassenburg Group, an automated endoscope reprocessing (AER) market leader in the Netherlands. The planned closing date was Nov. 1, 2013.

This strategic acquisition enables HOYA through its division PENTAX Medical to give its global customers complete access to a wider portfolio in the field of flexible endoscopy, from endoscopes to AERs. The same synergies will also be driven by Wassenburg as the respective installed base customers and new customers will have a wider portfolio from which to benefit.

Flexible endoscopy is approximately a $2.5 billion market globally and growing at an average 8 percent to 10 percent annually. The AER market is approximately a $1 billion market globally and growing at 10 percent to 12 percent annually. With this joint venture HOYA will now have access to a $3.5 billion market globally and also heralds a shift from a capital equipment company to enter the segment of consumables too.

The growth of the endoscopy market is driven by changing demographics, new minimally invasive procedures, new diagnostic technologies and new therapeutic endoscopic procedures which are increasing the number of endoscopy procedures. At the same time every endoscope after clinical use must be decontaminated with the same degree of rigor following every endoscopic procedure to prevent cross-contamination of patients. This underscores the importance of endoscope reprocessing and following disinfection guidelines to attain best practice and improve patient care. The trend in the market is the shift from manual to standardized automated reprocessing of endoscopes and presents a great growth opportunity.

This joint venture is about product synergies, channel synergies and geographic expansion. Wassenburg Medical Devices has direct operations and significant presence in western European countries with their leading edge AERs. Through this strategic alliance with HOYA they will now have a platform for entry in the worlds largest Endoscopy market, the USA and also into the emerging markets of Asia Pacific, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Middle East Africa. This strategic deal not only widens the portfolio for the HOYA customers but also offers a platform for growth into new markets and new segments.

This is a great match for us and a significant step forward for our global endoscopy strategy, says Jayant Saha, senior vice president, Global BD, PENTAX Medical, HOYA Group. Wassenburg is a fantastic company. Their management have done a great job building the company and we look forward to taking advantage of the strengths of our combined companies as we expand the product offerings globally into existing and new markets.

The transaction will involve the purchase of more than 50 percent of the shares of Wassenburg Group. The share acquisition is the latest step in HOYAs plan to gain share in all markets globally and the widening of the product portfolio positions HOYA to capture market share everywhere.

"Instilling greater clinical confidence by delivering high performance, reliability and value to our customers is at the core of everything we do," says Ganesh Ramaswamy, global president of PENTAX Medical. "Now PENTAX Medical along with Wassenburg look forward to offering seamless product offerings in the field of Endoscopy to our customers."

Source: Hoya Group