Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX May/June 2005

COVER STORY

When industry watchers want to know about trends that are affecting the development and delivery of medical technologies, they go to the top—to the executives of key companies in the field.

And from its very beginning-as a publication first titled Medical Device Executive Portfolio—a focus on the views of top industry executives has also been a key feature of MX. Cover stories in the magazine have highlighted the leaders of many of the industry’s top companies, enabling them to share their observations and strategic knowledge with a broad base of medtech executives.

All three of the retiring CEOs featured in this month's cover story have previously appeared in the magazine—beginning with Guidant president and CEO Ron Dollens, who appeared in the very first cover story, in 1999. At that time, Guidant was a four-year-old spin-off from Eli Lilly & Co. (Indianapolis) that was just beginning to grow its reputation for advanced cardiovascular technologies. In the previous year the company had recorded sales of $1.9 billion—a figure that grew to nearly $3.8 billion in 2004. Today, Guidant is on its way to merger with Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, NJ), which has agreed to pay roughly $25.4 billion for the company—making it the biggest-ever deal in the medtech industry.

Beckman Coulter president and CEO Jack Wareham was featured on the cover of the January/February 2001 issue-the first to appear under the new title of MX: Business Strategies for Medical Technology Executives. Wareham brought about the 1997 merger between Beckman Instruments and Coulter Corp. to form Beckman Coulter, and he also guided the company toward a new focus on developing instrumentation for clinical laboratories. The company reported revenues of $1.8 billion in 1999, and reached nearly $2.4 billion in 2004.

Stryker chairman and CEO John W. Brown was the subject of the most recent of the three cover stories, appearing in the May/June 2004 issue. Brown became CEO of Stryker in 1977, and led the company throughout its two-decade run of earnings growth exceeding 20% per year. Stryker reported sales revenues of $3.6 billion in 2003, and grew by 18% to record revenues of nearly $4.3 billion in 2004.

Interviews with top company executives such as these have enabled MX to offer readers insights into trends affecting the medical device industry and business strategies for dealing with them. To review what these leaders-and others-have had to say about their approaches to growing a business in the medical device industry, visit the on-line archive of MX issues available at www.devicelink.com/mx.

Copyright ©2005 MX