Getinge Is Refocusing Its Business: Here’s How

The Swedish medical device company has been trying to improve efficiency amid weak sales and a U.S. FDA consent decree.

Nancy Crotti

Struggling Swedish medical device giant Getinge will undergo a major overhaul beginning in January.

The company says it will merge its three divisions into one, in an effort to improve organic sales growth by 2% to 4%.

Getinge will establish a new sales force and try to expand its technology and product lines through three business units: surgical workflows, acute care therapies, and patient and post-acute care.

No information about the possibility of layoffs was available, but Harald Stock, president and CEO of the company's ArjoHuntleigh unit and executive vice president of extended care, is out. Paul Lyon, president of that division's international emerging markets segment, has been appointed interim executive vice president of extended care for the remainder of 2015.

The new group management will consist of: Alex Myers, president and CEO; Ulf Grunander, chief financial officer; Reinhard Mayer, president, supply chain; Joacim Lindoff, president, surgical workflows; Heinz Jacqui, president, acute care therapies; Felix Lara, president, patient and post-acute care; Carsten Blecker, president, Europe, Middle East and Africa; Raoul Quintero, president, Americas; and Paul Lyon, president, Asia/Pacific.

The Getinge, Sweden-based company, which makes surgical, intensive care, infection control, care ergonomics, and wound care technology, has been one of the worst performing medical device companies of 2015 when it comes to stock price. It  is still struggling to improve efficiency amid weak sales under new CEO Alex Myers.

Myers, who served between 2009 and 2013 as executive vice president of extended care, replacedJohan Malmquist as CEO in March. Malmquist headed the company for 18 years.

A consent decree with U.S. FDA is expected to cost the company the equivalent of $60 million, and that doesn't include the remediation costs related to the decree.

To save money, the company announced over the summer that it is closing its Rochester, NY, facility and moving the manufacturing to Poland.

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Nancy Crotti is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.