ZEON Corporation (President: Katsuhiko Nakano) has completed the construction of its second plant, adjacent to its Takaoka Plant (Takaoka city, Toyama Pref.), to reinforce the Company's medical equipment products business. The completion ceremony was held on March 25, 2002. As a result of the Company's investment, approximately 700 million yen, the plant now has 2.5 times its previous production capacity.
The Company also announced that, as of April 1, 2002, it has merged the medical-related division of its R&D Center (Kawasaki city, Kanagawa Pref.) and its manufacturing division of Medical Products into ZEON Medical Co., Ltd. (President: Toshikazu Onuki, Minato-ku, Tokyo), a medical equipment sales company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of ZEON Corporation.
ZEON Medical mainly handles two product lines: circulatory system products, such as the world's first supplementary artificial hearts, IABP (Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump), sheath introducers, and PTCA (Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty) balloons; and endoscopic related products for the digestive system, such as crusher catheters that crush gallstones, and bipolar snares that perform the resection of polyps. The establishment of this new plant will significantly increase production capacity, thereby strengthening its stable supply system.
The Company's medical equipment products business is expected to expand largely in response to the future aging of the population. However, with market competition also expected to become severer, the construction of an agile management system corresponding to corporate structure is urgently required.
With the completion of this new plant, the Company plans the early expansion of its medical equipment products business by reinforcing its new products development system, fully leveraging its position as a domestic maker through integrating manufacturing, research and development, and sales divisions; promoting sales alliances with other companies; providing mobile computers to all sales staff in order to establish a consolidated delivery system; and reinforcing a meticulous, prompt service system to improve sales efficiency.
The Company projects sales of approximately 4.3 billion yen in fiscal year 2002.
