The Greatbatch Alden facility was named one of IndustryWeek’s top 10 best plants in North America.
Greatbatch, formerly Wilson Greatbatch, has made seven major acquisitions in the last year that makes them one of the leading medical device manufacturers in the United States. Greatbatch is in a prime position to realize new business because of the following:
- The neuro modulation marketplace is growing 15-20 percent per year.
- The orthopedics maket has grown 20 percent year over year consistently.
- The Greatbatch Alden facility was named one of IndustryWeek‘s 2008 top 10 best plants in North America.
- In the Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) space, telemetry and remote monitoring is becoming more prevalent.
- Greatbatch wants to exploit markets that are growing 15-20 percent a year.
- They currently have 460 active patents and an active Intellectual Property (IP) house.
The above points were just some of the highlights presented at Greatbatch’s monthly meeting last week, appropriately hosted at the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, in the heart of the ever-expanding Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Buffalo and Western New York’s consistent incubator of growth in the late 2000s.
Erik Kornikava, part owner of Buffalo Biosciences and one of the sponsors of the event, introduced Greatbatch Vice President of Sales and Marketing Greg Vanderhorst, as well as Product Line Director for Emerging Technologies James Kubiak.
“Started in 1962, Greatbatch is in the $11 billion CRM industry,” Vanderhorst said. “We enable many different companies, and have undergone a massive transformation. Our intent is to grow through innovation, investment and strategic acquisitions. We started out as a private battery company, and went public in 2000. Our core competency is in components that go into pacemakers, defibrillators and neuro stimulators. In 2007 our total sales were $319 million.
“The award-winning Alden facility is an important story. It was named one of IndustryWeek’s top 10 best plants in North America. It manufactures implantable power sources for a majority of the world’s implantable medical device companies, and we are very proud of it. It took over one year to go through IndustryWeek’s process, with multiple site visits. What helped us get selected? Being efficienct. We are a six sigma operation. Plus, on the supply side to customers you need a minimum of 95 percent ontime shipping to qualify; we are over 99 percent in Alden.”
Greatbatch World Headquarters in Clarence NY
Vanderhorst went on to say, “In the future our intent in our strategic direction is to move with our strategic partners into the highest phase of the value chain, design and regulatory services. We are headquartered in Clarence, NY, and have over 3,300 employees worldwide, with 800 employees locally. Our 2008 sales product mix was cardiac and neurology, 62 percent; orthopedics, 23 percent; and commercial, 15 percent.
“The business model is to be a provider of components, products and medical devices. The goal is to sell to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) but not to compete with OEMs. Our main mission is to complement the big OEMs delivering high quality performance, operational excellence and unique customized solutions. Our niche is the manufacture of 80 percent of components in implanted medical devices.
“What we do is we make batteries; we put them in a case, we ship them out to the OEMs, they receive them, they test them to make sure they’re good, and then they put them in their products. We are developing what we think are core competencies and centers of excellence.”
Vanderhorst went on to welcome CEO Thomas J Hook, a Buffalo native who recently returned. “He sold his previous company, CTI Molecular Imaging to Siemens for $1 billion, and he absolutely loves being back,” Vanderhorst said.
Upcoming Life Sciences events like this one can be found at the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences website.
Information about career pathways and opportunities in Buffalo Life Sciences can be found at the Buffalo and Western New York Life Sciences website.