Ofer Hi Tech Ltd. portfolio company EZ Surgical Ltd. has signed a distribution deal with Medline Industries Inc., which EZ Surgical says is the largest private distributor of medical equipment in the US. Medline has 4,000 end points, including hospitals and private clinics.
Yokne'am-based EZ Surgical did not disclose the size of the deal, but it can be estimated at tens of millions of dollars. The company develops and produces surgical retractors: the Disposable Absorbent Secure Hold (DASH) retractor for open abdominal surgery, which has US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance, and the new A-Lap 3D retractor/displacement laparoscopic procedures.
EZ Surgical CEO Tzur DiCori told "Globes", "Until now, we marketed our product independently in the US. We aimed to prove sales feasibility of the product. We showed that we could penetrate the product quickly at 150 hospitals, and that the sales turnover was short, only a few months."
EZ Surgical's sales team has moved on to market its latest product, the A-Lap.
DiCori added, "We're not building the company for sale, but for the long term." He added that he was considering an IPO for the company in two or three years. The company had $500,000 in sales last year, and DiCori predicts that the new deal will boost sales to $1.5 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 29, 2009
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