News and press

With the opening of a new 22,000-square metre production centre in Zhuhai in south-western China, Coloplast puts a temporary halt to the expansion of its production facilities.

The establishment of the production centre is part of Coloplast's global production strategy from October 2006 to achieve world-class production in the form of high quality on time while at the same time reducing total unit costs by five per cent a year from 2008. The USD 14 million production centre is to provide jobs for an additional 600 employees in Zhuhai, bringing the total number of employees in China to 800.

The opening takes place less than two months after Coloplast's opening on 20 September 2007 of a similar production centre in Nyírbátor in eastern Hungary - Coloplast's second production centre in Hungary. With this, the company puts a preliminary halt to the expansion of its production facilities that is aimed at strengthening its global competitiveness through more cost-effective production.

In the period up to 2012, the number of factories worldwide will be cut back from 12 to eight, and approximately 700 jobs will be moved out of Denmark - without any Danish employees' being made redundant. The number of employees in production worldwide is expected to grow from 3,100 to 4,300 in the same period.

In 2012, production will be distributed as follows: Denmark: approximately 20 per cent (previously 50 per cent), Hungary approximately 45 per cent (previously 20 per cent), China approximately 25 per cent (previously 5 per cent) and the USA and France approximately 10 per cent (previously 25 per cent).

The production strategy from 2006 was shortly after followed up by a reorganisation of headquarters. In February 2007, the former divisions within ostomy care, urology & continence care and wound & skin care were brought together in a number of global functions that are today engaged in research & development, marketing and sales. At the same time, the subsidiaries, which are responsible for sales, were reorganised into four large regions.

At the opening of the production centre in Zhuhai, Coloplast's Head of Production, SVP, Jørgen Bundgaard Hansen, expressed his delight that yet another important milestone had been achieved: "I am very pleased to see the progress we have made in China since our entry into this country with a sales subsidiary and small-scale production 12 years ago. With the support of the Chinese government, we have now paved the way for world-class production of medical devices, not just for the Chinese market, but also for the whole world. At the same time, we have achieved a sound base for intensified growth both in China and globally," said Jørgen Bundgaard Hansen.

Coloplast China was established in 1995 and started up small-scale production of medical devices in China in 1996. Today, the Beijing office is in charge of sales.

Coloplast has taken the initiative for the establishment of Coloplast Academy in China to offer health care professionals across China the latest knowledge concerning the treatment methods that relate to Coloplast's innovative products.

Coloplast opens a new production site in Zhuhai and celebrates its 50th Jubilee.

Coloplast, a leading company within medical devices, celebrated its 50th Jubilee on 1 November 2007 by opening a brand new production centre in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province.

The 14 million dollar production centre will employ 600 people bringing the total number of Coloplast employees in China to 800.

The opening ceremony was attended by H.E. Anne Steffensen, Danish Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, Danish Ambassador, H.E. Deng Weilong, General Secretary of CMP of Zhuhai, H.E. Zhong Shijian, Mayor of Zhuhai City, Jens Martin Alsbirk, General Consul of Denmark in Guangzhou, He Ningka, Vice Mayor of Zhuhai, Chen Honghui, Vice Mayor of Zhuhai, and other honoured guests representing the Chinese and Danish governments, business and media.

Coloplast management led by Sten Scheibye, President and CEO, Jørgen Bundgaard Hansen, SVP, Roman Trawicki, VP, and Jesper L. Thomsen, Site Director hosted the ceremony.

During the celebration Sten Scheibye expressed his delight over the new factory in Zhuhai: "I am very pleased to see the progress we have made here in China since our entry 12 years ago. With the support from the Chinese government, our business partners and our employees we have been able to be the driving force in maturing markets for ostomy care, urology and continence care as well as wound and skin care in China. As a global company with a long tradition for contributing to a better quality of life for people with tabooed impairments we are gratified to see that our business values are fully in line with the current development objectives of China as China is well on its way to building a more healthy society based on an increasingly consummate medical care system."

Scheibye further expressed how pleased he was with the close co-operation with the Chinese authorities and revealed that Coloplast and China have more in common than most people know: "Fifty years ago Coloplast was founded on the basis of a close relationship with our customers. However, Coloplast did not invent the process of growing a business through close relationships although listening and responding epitomizes our way of doing business. In fact the fine art of building relationships is one of the most remarkable characteristics of China that meets you when you visit this magnificent country from abroad. Without a keen and persistent ability to get together with other people there would be no financial wonder as the one we experience in China right now. And there would be no new production centre in Zhuhai today."

Commenting on the production centre, Jørgen Bundgaard Hansen said, "The Zhuhai production centre is a world-class facility with 22,000 square meters manufacturing and with state-of-the-art technology. Our objective is to speed up our growth in China by enhancing our abilities to offer better products and service to the Chinese market as well as globally. The new factory will also produce and provide medical manufacturing equipment for Coloplast worldwide".

Speaking at the celebration, Danish ambassador Tranholm-Mikkelsen said that he was very impressed by the efforts made by leading Danish companies like Coloplast to build a strong partnership with the Chinese community, local government, business partners and its Chinese employees. He believed the success of such a partnership is the cornerstone of the solid bilateral relations between the two nations. He also expressed his gratitude to the Chinese government for providing a favourable environment for the growth of Danish business in China.

This year Coloplast celebrates its 50th anniversary. The story of how Coloplast began still holds the essence of what the company is all about. When the trained nurse Elise Sørensen experienced that her sister lived in social isolation after an ostomy surgery she decided to do something about it. In the 1950's ostomy appliances were neither leak proof nor odour free. Elise believed that an ostomy bag attached by an adhesive seal around the stoma would make a world of difference. So did Coloplast's founders. And it did. Since then - 50 years later - Coloplast still continues to listen and respond to people's needs thus helping them to live life to the full.

• Founded in 1957 in Denmark, Coloplast is an innovative world leader in specialized medical devices for ostomy, continence care, wound and skin care
• Coloplast has production bases in Denmark, China, USA, Germany, Hungary and France with total sales of 1.373 billion USD
• With 7000 employees in 30 countries around the world, the company has a strong and successful tradition of always being an innovative leader for quality designs offering better products and services based on close communications with customers 
• Coloplast has a long-term commitment to China in helping improve the quality of life of the people with its quality medical devices and services 
• Coloplast China was established in 1995 and started production in 1996. The company produces appliances for ostomy care, urology and continence care as well as wound/skin care for China and other international markets 
• It has sales offices reaching across China and a major production centre in Zhuhai, Guangdong 
• In order to provide latest industrial knowledge to medical professionals including nurses and doctors in China, the company has established Coloplast Academy 
• The products, which Coloplast manufactures and sells in China, are of the highest international quality standards and are ISO 14001 and ISO13485 compliant

Coloplast has invested in the Danish biotech company Interface Biotech A/S in return for a 15 per cent stake in the company.

The investment has been made via Coloplast's recently established incubator function, which is charged with identifying and exploiting technologies outside Coloplast's three core business areas while at the same time enhancing Coloplast's expertise and insight into new technologies outside the normal scope of Coloplast's Research & Development organisation.

The collaboration is to support the two companies' work within biomaterials, including in connection with cartilage cells. The long-term aim is for the collaboration to help the treatment of patients with traumatised knees.

In future, knee trauma can be treated by removing a piece of healthy cartilage from the patient, isolating cartilage cells from this and culturing them at a laboratory to achieve a significant increase in the number of such cells, and, lastly, fixating biomaterial with the harvested cells at the site of the cartilage damage, thus accelerating the healing of the knee compared with conventional methods, where the patient has to wait for the cartilage to heal by itself.

Coloplast's contribution to such treatment will typically consist in supplying the scaffolds on which the cultured cartilage cells are to be fixated before being implanted in the patient. In return, Interface Biotech will be responsible for harvesting and culturing the cartilage cells.

Since its establishment in 1999, Interface Biotech has already gained extensive experience in artificial membranes for repair of tissue damage such as cartilage damage.

The collaboration between Interface Biotech and Coloplast aims at expanding the use of the combined technologies into other clinical areas.

Facts about Interface Biotech

Interface Biotech is a privately owned company that was established in 1999 and focuses on the development of new treatment regimes for both cartilage and bone disorders. The company also offers a range of other research services within cell, tissue, cartilage and bone research. In addition, Interface Biotech has developed a second-generation product (Cartilink-2®), which is used for the treatment of cartilage defects in the knee joint (Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation) using patient-derived cartilage cells.

In March 2006, Interface Biotech completed the construction of a number of state-of-the-art cell culture laboratories of international top class. The new laboratories fulfil the latest requirements set by the Danish Medical Agency (DMA) and the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA). Furthermore, in April 2007, Interface Biotech was authorised by the DMA as a National Tissue Center. Interface Biotech has also been approved for culturing human cells for implantations.

In connection with its 50th anniversary, Coloplast is launching a donation programme that is expected to donate DKK 50 million over the next ten years to health-promoting projects in countries in which access to medical devices is limited.

Education and training of health professionals within ostomy, urology & continence or wound & skin care are areas that might receive financial support.
With this programme, Coloplast wishes to contribute to improved well-being for people across the world, but with the main emphasis on the less developed countries.
Coloplast will appoint an independent assessment committee that will be charged with prioritisation of selected health projects. Coloplast expects to make donations to the first specific health projects within one year.
The donation programme can form part of joint projects or collaboration with other organisations that also promote health and treatment.

The Competition Authority in Rome (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) today has fined Coloplast € 910,080 for restrictive behaviour in relation to a tender from local health authorities in Ferrara in 2003. Coloplast has decided to appeal against the ruling.

The Competition authority in Rome (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) today has fined Coloplast € 910,080 for restrictive behaviour in relation to a tender from local health authorities in Ferrara in 2003. Coloplast has decided to appeal against the ruling.

The case first became public when the local competition authorities carried out a dawn raid at Coloplasts offices in Bologna on 25 July 2006. Then the Italian competition authorities acted on a claim from the local health authorities in Ferrara stating that the reason why Coloplast did not bid on a tender for local supply of ostomy products in 2003 could be due to restrictive behaviour. The four main providers of ostomy products in Italy all chose not to participate in the tender.

The fact is, that Coloplast chose not to bid on the tender because it would prevent Italian citizens the freedom of choice of ostomy appliances, which they are entitled to according to Italian law (Nomeclatore tariffario delle protesi - DM 332/99).

The tender was criticized by the national and local Ostomy association, who feared their members would no longer be allowed to use the ostomy appliances that would make them able to live a normal life with jobs, friends and family. Different people need different appliances, and this is the main reason why tenders in Italy usually allow more than one supplier of the same type of ostomy product.

In early 2005 the tender was withdrawn, and the authorities in Ferrara invited the tender manager to issue a new bid that could allow the supply of all the brands. The new tender was issued and finalized in 2005. This tender is still operational and ensures the citizens the freedom of choice when it comes to ostomy appliances.

On that basis, and fact that the competition authorities have acknowledged there were no meetings between suppliers with the purpose of discussing the tender, Coloplast will immediately appeal today's ruling. Until the result of this appeal is made public Coloplast will have no further comments.

Coloplast wins Medical Design Excellence Award for Conveen® Optima.

Coloplast’s Conveen® Optima urisheath has received silver 2007 Medical Design Excellence Award for groundbreaking innovations that are changing the face of healthcare. The Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) is organised and presented by Canon Communications LLC (Los Angeles), and is the premier awards programme for the medical technology community.

Entries were judged on product innovation, design and engineering achievement, benefits to end-users, and cost-effectiveness in manufacturing and healthcare delivery. An impartial, multidisciplinary panel of jurors conducted the review of entries with expertise in biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, medicine and diagnostics.

Conveen® Optima received a prize in the category Over-The-Counter and Self-Care Products.

Approximately 5 per cent of the world’s male population, and more than two million men in the United States experience some form of urinary leakage and suffer the risk and embarrassment of involuntary urine loss. With Conveen® Optima these men will be able to live a normal life among colleagues and family without being afraid of sudden leakages, preventing the social isolation that often follows with untreated urinary incontinence.

A clinical study conducted by Coloplast shows that 67 per cent of participants preferred Conveen® Optima, as it is easier to apply, also when wearing gloves, as they do not stick to the urisheath when using the double strip grip, it is comfortable to wear and the Smart Pack is very convenient in any situation.

Conveen® Optima is made from medical grade silicone so it is stretchy and breathable and allows for a perfect fit. The anti-leak system, balanced adhesive and the secure connection to a leg bag ensure maximum security.

Conveen® Optima sets a new standard in urisheaths for males suffering from urinary incontinence. The new Conveen® Optima provides both users and healthcare professionals a unique, innovative and easy to use solution.

Due to the Smart Pack packaging, the retail box is 75 per cent smaller than conventional retail boxes, substantially reducing storage and transport space. The box is very discreet, clicks open easily and is designed to protect the urisheath in any situation. It is small and thin, yet strong enough to hold the compressed urisheath inside. After opening, the urisheath is ready to use and easily removed from the Smart Pack. The unique double strip grip ensures a secure roll out for both users, including those with reduced hand dexterity, and healthcare professionals wearing gloves.

Conveen® Optima is an excellent example of Coloplast developing a new product listening carefully to the needs of users and healthcare professionals. These needs have been translated into the ingenious features of Conveen® Optima, making life easier for the customers.

Exclusive U.S. Distribution of the Durasphere® EXP Bulking Agent.

Coloplast Corp. becomes the exclusive U.S. distributor for Durasphere® EXP in the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence.

Mpls-St Paul, MN - Coloplast Corp. announced today that they have signed an agreement with Carbon Medical Technologies, Inc., giving Coloplast Corp. exclusive US distribution rights to Durasphere® EXP Injectable Bulking Agent and it's new needle delivery system. The clinically proven bulking agent will be available from Coloplast beginning in June 2007.

Durasphere® EXP Injectable Bulking Agent is composed of pyrolytic carbon coated beads suspended in a water-based carrier gel and is indicated for the treatment of adult women with stress urinary incontinence ("SUI") due to intrinsic sphincter deficiency. Durasphere® EXP is injected in order to augment the soft tissue around the urethra to close the bladder neck and restore normal urinary control.

Commenting on the performance of Durasphere® EXP, Dr Kathleen C. Kobashi, Co-Director, Continence Center at Virginia Mason and Clinical Associate Professor, University of Washington in Seattle, stated, "In my experience, the Durasphere® EXP injectable agent has been very effective in treating female incontinence due to intrinsic sphincter deficiency, and we anticipate continued improvements through Coloplast's involvement."

In the US alone, over 15 million women suffer from SUI. While not a life threatening disease it is one that has serious adverse effect on the quality of a woman's life. The number of  women suffering from SUI is projected to increase based on the aging of the U.S. population. Injectable urethral bulking agents represent an alternative to surgical approaches for the relief of SUI and its often-debilitating symptoms.

"Coloplast is excited to distribute this minimally-invasive therapy for female stress urinary incontinence," said Jan Rolin Frederiksen, President of Coloplast USA.

"Durasphere® EXP is a natural strategic extension of our growing Women's Health franchise, and provides an effective, easy-to-use solution for treating stress urinary incontinence in women. Additionally, Carbon Medical Technologies' new needle design overcomes many of the delivery challenges previously experienced with bulking agents - potentially setting a new standard in injectable procedure reproducibility."

Europe must support the efforts of people with a special medical condition to rejoin an active, independent life. Millions of Europeans are suffering in silence. Helping them would increase both the cost-effectiveness of European health care systems, and boost European competitiveness. That was concluded at a conference in the EU Parliament today.

Debilitating pain and fear of exclusion because of regular therapeutic needs keep millions of Europeans of all ages from fully developing their potential. Action is necessary to support the re-integration efforts of people with a special medical condition who see their mobility and independence reduced. From support groups to medical innovations, there is a lot that Europeans can do to help these men women and children to live productive and happy lives, without losing sight of public health costs and pressures.

"Health is wealth"

The demographic developments with an increasing ageing population in the EU will affect society in numerous ways. By 2030, the number of "older workers" will have risen by 24 million and the EU will have 34.7 million citizens aged over 80. The upcoming trends in the health care sector such as cost savings, competitiveness, public funding, private health insurances and staff shortages need to be addressed.

Medical technology holds the solution to many of these challenges. When giving priority to high-quality health care, governments invest in a healthy and resourceful population. This is an investment, which in the longer term will help reduce overall social expenditures. This was highlighted by Mr. Laurent Selles, Deputy Head of the European Commission's Cosmetics and Medical Devices Unit, who stated that investment in health provides a good return from the users.

Innovation holds the solution to Europe's success

Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for enterprise and industry, has repeatedly stated that the medical device sector is an area in which society and citizens directly benefit from innovation and technological progress.

According to Mandy Leighton, President of the European Pain Network, not only can innovation in medicine and medical devices contribute to making healthcare systems more efficient; it contributes to better health and well-being which, in turn, brings wealth and productivity, employment, exports and improved European attractiveness in an increasingly competitive and global market. She added that user-driven innovations are simpler, cheaper and have a high success rate. "Often, merely improving an existing solution can be revolutionary to patients' lives".

Mr Sten Scheibye, President and CEO of Coloplast, stated that innovation was probably the most important driver for growth for Coloplast and its industry as a whole. "It is essential that the regulatory framework and reimbursement schemes encourage and value innovation and make new innovative products easily accessible to patients. Without patient's access to innovative products, there would be no incentives for the European medtech industry to drive innovation. One cannot exist without the other, and governments need to prioritise high-quality health care, which includes patient access to innovative medical devices", continued Mr Scheibye.

How to slow down the brain drain to the US and Asia

Various studies have proven that the European medical devices industry is lagging behind the US and Japan in terms of research. Janez Potocnik, Commissioner for Science and Research, aims to boost research in Europe in the hope that this will contribute to the EU's overall competitiveness. More financial resources should be allocated to health care in order to pursue the growth potential that the medical devices industry holds.
Marc Suhrcke, Economist at WHO, elaborated at the conference on how innovation, and R&D could be good for the economy. He also highlighted the fact that the US invests more resources than the EU in R&D, and he called for a joint look at what could lead to a good R&D investment strategy.

European medical devices sector has much to offer Europe

The medical devices industry should play a major role in bringing Europe closer to the Lisbon objectives, and can be instrumental in creating economic growth and competitiveness. The medical devices industry holds a large potential for growth and is at the forefront when it comes to utilising innovation in building global competitiveness.

Innovative products will continue to help prevent diseases, shorten hospital stays and save lives. When giving priority to high-quality health care, governments invest in a healthy and resourceful population. In the longer term, this is an investment that will help reduce overall social expenditures.

Billions of patients worldwide depend on medical technology at home, at doctors' surgeries, in hospital and in nursing homes. Medical technology represents less than 7% of total healthcare expenditure in Europe. The user training and technical support it provides are often indispensable. Feedback from doctors, nurses and patients enables the medical devices industry to constantly perfect the technology.

The European medical technology industry invests an average of more than 6% of sales in R&D and employs close to 400.000 highly skilled workers. Small and medium-sized companies make up more than 80% of this sector.