Philips Medical Systems – Taking the Road to Emporer of Imaging Equipment
Philips medical systems are known of in imaging centers and hospitals world-wide. How did Philips Medical grow to be such a big player in the medical equipment industry? Well, In 1998, Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands fathered the Philips Healthcare Services group and Royal Philips appears determined that their “crowned prince” will soon become King of the medical imagingequipment industry.
Apparently, this move was in reaction to GE Medical Systems’ announcement that it was planning to become king itself of the ultrasound industry before the year 2000. Not to be “out-royaled”, Philips from their beginning year began an acquisition frenzy of medical systems companies so it could expand its subsidiary’s product line far beyond its original product line.
At the end of Philips Healthcare Services’ (PHS) beginning year, Philips Electronics added digital ultrasound systems to PHS’s portfolio by getting ATL Ultrasound. Only two years later, in late 2000, Philips grew into nuclear medicine by absorbing ADAC Laboratories of California.
2001 was a watershed year as Philips shifted into a very high gear by obtaining two more businesses and their medical imaging product lines – Agilent and Marconi Medical. By procuring Agilent Technologies’ Healthcare Solutions Group, Philips shot past GE Medical as the head of the ultrasound sector. Philips took in Agilent’s expertise in diagnostic cardiology, automated defibrillators, patient monitoring, and point of care diagnostic systems.
Marconi Medical Systems of Ohio, aka. Picker International, was already a huge 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 one year put Philips in the top three for all of the medical equipment industry along with giants Siemens and GE Medical – some say as number two.
In 2005, the expansion kept going as Philips purchased Stentor, Inc., a manufacturer of best-in-class picture archiving and communications systems (PACS). This move let Philips to aid its clients successfully manage the voluminous amounts of imaging data created by its own imaging equipment. Then, the next year, the expansion continued as Philips adopted Witt Biomedical Corporation, the largest independent supplier of Cath Lab monitoring and reporting systems.
In its drive to become King of Medical Imaging Systems, Philips Healthcare Services has acquired 6 businesses since its inception in 1998. Each of the six has enhanced Philips’ offerings to a total of ten medical imaging modalities, from ultrasound to MRI to x-ray, along with defibrillation and cardiac monitoring equipment and more.
So, has Philips entered the royal industry castle yet? Some think so. As a matter of fact, prior to the last two acquisitions, Palo Alto’s “growth consulting” company Frost & Sullivan seemed to believe so. In 2004 Frost & Sullivan told everyone they were awarding Philips FIVE awards for “technology and services innovation and industry leadership”. Philips was recognized for making distinguished contributions to the cardiac resuscitation and medical imaging industries and for giving leadership in these market segments.
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 answer of Jouko Karvinen, president and CEO of Philips Medical Systems, to the what he received sounded like the equivalent of an industry coronation speech. He stated, “We proudly accept the Frost & Sullivan Awards as an independent validation of Philips business and technology leadership. These five awards are further indicators that Philips continues to set the industry standard for developing innovative products that help treat patients and save lives.”
