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Originally Published MDDI October
2004
Cover Story
MD&DI’s Medical Manufacturers of the Year
Erik
Swain
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| Zimmer |
What makes for an outstanding medical device company? There are many ways to
answer that question, given the diversity of the industry and the wide array
of accomplishments by its member companies.
Indeed, the world of medical devices is so variegated that it is nearly impossible
to single out one company as the industry’s top success story or as its
foremost role model. In particular, the larger device firms and the smaller
ones have completely different sets of issues to face and challenges to overcome.
So this year MD&DI has chosen two Medical Manufacturers of the Year:
a large company and a small one. The former, Zimmer Holdings Inc. (Warsaw,
IN), is one of the most respected of the industry’s giants. The latter,
Aspect Medical Systems Inc. (Newton, MA), is only just starting to get
recognition as a company that is having an effect on healthcare.
Yet, while the day-to-day issues of the two firms have little in common, there
are some similarities in how they achieved success.
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| Aspect |
One is the strategic vision of management and the commitment to seeing it through
across the entire organization. Beginning in 1998, Zimmer reinvented itself
as an orthopedics manufacturer that would pioneer the use of minimally invasive
surgery in its field. It then executed a strategy of research, development,
and acquisitions that today make it one of the fastest-growing companies in
its sector. Likewise, Aspect has never wavered from its mission to improve the
safe delivery of anesthetic through consciousness monitoring. It has refined
its technology and partnered with larger firms to make sedation safer for millions
of patients.
Another is the ability to persevere through setbacks. Zimmer endured years of
being a low-priority subsidiary of a company in another industry and was in
danger of becoming a dinosaur. But it found a strategy that restored the company
to the vanguard of its field and has generated enough enthusiasm to create almost
$13 billion in market capitalization in the three years since it became independent.
Aspect almost ceased to exist because of failed clinical trials. But it learned
from its adversity and today its technology has proved its worth many times
over.
What follows are two very different stories that illustrate some of the same
lessons.
Zimmer
Holdings Inc.: Out from Under
Aspect Medical
Systems Inc.: Patience Pays off
Copyright ©2004 Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry
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