The Cork medical device distributor Healthcare21 expects its revenue to grow by 5 per cent this year. Based in Blarney, the business was founded by Owen Curtin in 2003, has 360 staff and had revenue of €136 million last year.
It sells to hospitals, private care and other distributors across Ireland.
“We’re a sales, marketing and services distributor. We take leading global brands and bring them to the Irish health service,” Edel O’Sullivan, chief executive of Healthcare21, told the Business Post.
“That incorporates many different areas. We cover 15 different therapeutic areas, there’s no area of the hospital that we don’t cover. From bandages to room care through to taking blood oxygen levels and surgical products, we facilitate a broad range.”
The idea for the business came from Curtin’s own extensive experience working in the healthcare sector prior to setting up Healthcare21.
“At the time there weren’t many distributors in the Irish market and, of those that were there, there was a lot of conflict in the portfolios. A lot of the big brands want exclusivity. There was an opportunity with Tyco and they approached Owen to set up a business working just with their brand,” O’Sullivan said.
“He had a very entrepreneurial brain and he believed in the idea, putting his own home behind it. The whole goal was to bring a legendary service to the market. It was a big gamble but it had the foundation of good people with a strong culture.”
O’Sullivan took over as chief executive last year, having joined the business 12 years ago.
“My background was in construction. After the collapse in 2008, I was looking at where to go in my career. I investigated the medical world and it was something with a sense of purpose. I had a real interest in it,” she said.
“When I joined Healthcare21, I was asked to take on multiple divisions and it evolved from there.”
Having begun in a room in Curtin’s house, the company has grown substantially and O’Sullivan said that reinvestment has been at the heart of Healthcare21’s growth.
“The original strategy was simply if we had a product in one hospital, why wasn’t it in every hospital? While doing that and generating revenue, we reinvested into more therapeutic areas,” she said.
“We went from having four or five therapeutic areas to 15. It was a case of listening to the market needs and going out to find the manufacturers that could meet that.”
The business now has 200 distributors working with it in the Irish market and plans to continue growing its presence. A key part of this is enabling more patients to be treated outside of hospitals.
“The market is evolving quickly. We need to maintain that people can get out of hospitals quicker by bringing products that meet that need. That means bringing more wearables to hospitals,” O’Sullivan said. “We are utilising more products now to better manage patients in the home setting.”
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