Public Approval 3513

Originally Published MX January/February 2004

COVERY STORY

Dade Behring chairman, president, and CEO Jim Reid-Anderson on the challenges and virtues of taking a billion-dollar-plus medtech company public.

Interview by Steve Halasey

It's a rare event when a new member joins the club of public medical device companies with revenues of $1 billion or more. All together, in fact, only about 30 companies worldwide qualify for membership in this elite group.

At the end of 2002, however, one more member was ushered in as a result of the financial restructuring and relaunch of in vitro diagnostics manufacturer Dade Behring Inc. (Deerfield, IL) as a public company.

The world's largest pure-play IVD company, with 2002 revenues of nearly $1.3 billion, Dade Behring was formed in 1997 through the merger of Dade International and the Behring Diagnostics business unit of Hoechst AG. Initially, the newly combined company seemed to be taking the challenges of integration in stride. But it soon became clear that the firm was overloaded with debt and headed for trouble (see sidebar, "Emerging from Merger").