Philips Medical - On The Royal Road To Emporer Of Medical Equipment

In 1998, Royal Philips Electronics fathered Philips Healthcare Services and Royal Philips appears determined that their subsidiary 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 "out-royaled", Philips from the first year started an acquisition frenzy so they could expand its subsidiary's product portfolio well beyond its original product line, which began in 1918 with medical x-ray tubes.

At the end of Philips Healthcare Services first year, Philips Electronics added digital ultrasound systems to PHS's portfolio by acquiring ATL Ultrasound of Washington. Only two years later, in late 2000, Philips expanded into nuclear medicine by absorbing ADAC Laboratories of California.

In 2001 was a watershed year as Philips shifted into a very 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 shot 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 player 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 two acquisitions in 1 year put Philips in the top 3 for the entire medical equipment industry along with giants Siemens and GE Medical - there are those who say as number two.

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

In its drive to become King of the Medical Equipment industry, Philips Healthcare Services has acquired six businesses since its inception in 1998. Each of the six 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 plus image and information management solutions.

So the question is, has Philips moved into the royal industry castle yet? Some believe so. In fact, before the last two acquisitions, Palo Alto's "growth consulting" company Frost & Sullivan seemed to think 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 simply searching for a place at the royal court or were these legitimate kudos? The latter, most likely. F&S organized interviews with a myriad of market players along with their customers and suppliers, and reportedly did a great deal of research into the medical equipment technology field.

One of the five 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 two were for Technology Leadership and Services Innovation Leadership.

The response of Jouko Karvinen, president and 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 more indicators that Philips continues to set the industry standard for developing innovative products that help treat patients and save lives."

Royal Philips. Long live our King!

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