Philips Medical - On the Royal Road to King of Medical Equipment

Nearly a decade ago, Royal Philips Electronics fathered the Philips Healthcare Services group and Royal Philips appears determined that "the son" will soon become King of the medical imagingequipment industry. This move apparently came in response to GE Medical Systems' announcement that it planned on becoming king itself of the ultrasound industry before the year 2000. Not to be outdone, Philips from the beginning year started an acquisition frenzy in order to expand its subsidiary's product portfolio well beyond its initial product line, which started in 1918 with medical x-ray tubes.

Concluding Philips Healthcare Services beginning year, Philips Electronics added digital ultrasound systems to PHS's portfolio by getting ATL Ultrasound of Washington. Only 2 years later, in late 2000, Philips grew into nuclear medicine by absorbing ADAC Laboratories of California.

In 2001 was a watershed year as Philips went into high gear by obtaining two more businesses and their product lines - Agilent and Marconi Medical. By procuring Agilent Technologies Healthcare Solutions Group of Massachusetts, Philips catapulted past GE Medical as the leader of the ultrasound sector. Philips took in Agilent's expertise in the areas of diagnostic cardiology, automated defibrillators, patient monitoring, and point of care diagnostic systems.

Marconi Medical Systems of Ohio, formerly Picker International, was already a big part in its own right among gigantinc global CT suppliers. With Marconi, Philips obtained cutting-edge multi-slice CT technology along with cardiology, oncology and PET/CT imaging applications. These 2 aquirements in one year put Philips in the top three for the entire medical equipment industry along with giants Siemens and GE Medical - there are those who say as number 2.

In 2005, the expansion continued as Philips purchased Stentor, Inc. of California, provider of best-in-class picture archiving and communications systems (PACS). This move allowed Philips to aid its clients successfully manage the voluminous amounts of imaging data designed by its medical scanners. Then, the next year, the expansion continued as Philips adopted Witt Biomedical Corporation, the biggest independent supplier of Cath Lab monitoring and reporting systems.

In its quest to be crowned King of the Medical Equipment industry, Philips Healthcare Services has obtained 6 businesses since its inception in 1998. Every single one of the 6 has stretched Philips' offerings to include a total of ten medical imaging modalities, from CT to MRI to x-ray, along with defibrillation and cardiac monitoring equipment as well as image and information management solutions.

So, has Philips arrived at the royal industry castle yet? Some think so. As a matter of fact, prior to the last 2 acquisitions, Palo Alto's "growth consulting" company Frost & Sullivan thought so. In 2004 Frost & Sullivan announced they were giving Philips five, count them, 5 awards for "technology and services innovation and industry leadership". Philips was honored for giving distinguished contributions to the cardiac resuscitation and medical imaging industries and for providing leadership in these market segments.

Was Frost & Sullivan only looking for a place at the royal court or were these genuine kudos? Doubtless the latter. F&S conducted interviews with various market players and their customers and suppliers, and reportedly did a great deal of research into the medical equipment technology field.

One of the many awards included the regent-like titles of "Medical Imaging Company of the Year", "New Care Setting of the Year", and "Medical Imaging Technology of the Year". The other 2 were for Technology Leadership and Services Innovation Leadership.

The answer of Jouko Karvinen, CEO of Philips Medical Systems, to the what he recieved sounded like the exact same of an industry coronation speech. He stated, "We proudly recieve the Frost Sullivan Awards as an independent validation of Philips business and technology leadership. These 5 awards are further indicators that Philips continues to set the industry standard for developing innovative products that help treat patients and save lives."

Royal Philips. Long live the Ruler!

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Jesse Fisher enjoys writing articles for his clients. He serves as trafficmaster for TransAmerican Medical, the largest independent provider of refurbished Philips medical equipment, systems and parts. This article may be republished online if reproduced in its entirety.