OHK Medical Devices Ltd., has signed an exclusive marketing agreement with Henry Schein Inc. (Nasdaq: HSIC) for Hemaclear, an innovative tourniquet to create a bloodless field for limb surgery.
Henry Schein is one of the largest distributors of medical devices in the US, and has a market cap of $6.3 billion. It also distributes the dental surgical products of Sialo Technology Israel Ltd. (TASE: SALO).
OHK CEO Oren Gavriely founded the company on the basis of an invention by his father, Dr. Noam Gavriely. Noam Gavriely is also behind the inventions on which ET View Medical Ltd. (TASE: ETVW) and KarmelSonix Ltd. (ASX: KSX) are based. OHK currently only focuses on the Hemaclear tourniquet.
Shlomo Ben-Haim is one of OHK's investors. He is a founder of Biosense Webster Inc., Impulse Dynamics NV, InStent Inc., and Disc-O-Tech Ltd., which were sold for over $1 billion altogether. He currently manages nine portfolio companies through Medinvest, and invests in early-stage companies.
The largest investor in OHK is Italy's IP Medical. OHK has raised $4.5 million to date.
Hemaclear is a small and fairly cheap product designed to replace heavy and expensive tourniquet systems to create blood-free environments for limb surgery. The company has independently sold 150 Hemaclear units to date to hospitals, generating $3 million revenue, mostly in Europe. The company has 20 employees.
Henry Schein bought exclusive distribution rights to the Hemaclear to non-hospital clinics, which often carry out simple limb surgical procedures, but which cannot afford expensive tourniquets.
OHK plans to add other activities ahead of an IPO, not necessarily in Israel, in 2012.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 16, 2011
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011