Founded in 1991 in Shenzen, China, Mindray is one of the leading global providers of medical devices and solutions. Mindray is active over three segments. The first segment is in-vitro diagnostics - laboratory equipment. The second is patient monitoring and life support: monitoring to safeguard patients and life support apparatus, such as respiratory equipment. The third segment is digital imaging, especially ultrasound.
The Netherlands; an obvious choice
In 2008 Mindray has acquired the US company Datascope, specialized in patient monitoring. The European branch of Datascope was based in Hoevelaken, with highly skilled and motivated staff and with good warehouse facilities. The decision to make Hoevelaken the distribution center of Mindray for Europe was therefor easy to make. Within an hour drive of Schiphol airport with direct flights to Shenzen and various European countries, Hoevelaken is well connected.
Oost NL: bridge between organizations
Mindray received help in an early stage from Oost NL, especially from the Life Sciences part that is specialized in helping companies from China. Peter Lafeber, General Manager Mindray Medical Netherlands, explains: "When we met with Oost NL, we were presented with an array of potential partners and companies with whom we could cooperate. Companies, often startups, but also very interesting research projects that we would not normally know about. In this way Oost NL really bridges between Mindray and other organizations."
Further growth and expansions
With recent corona pandemic, the demand for Mindray’s products and solutions has exploded. Fortunately, production in Shenzen was not affected by the corona outbreak in China, so they managed to increase their production. The demand for respirators was overwhelming, so they had to set quota per country to distribute the available products as fairly as possible. Peter, however, expects that demand will decrease the next year: “Hospitals have fixed budgets, that have been spent to buy additional equipment. It is likely that originally planned purchases will be delayed, but these are uncertain times.” A probably more lasting development is the wish of countries to keep stock of medical devices nearby. Mindray has temporarily rented more warehouse capacity and is considering to expand warehouse facilities on a more permanent base. Next to more warehouse capacity Mindray Netherlands has started taking care of the final assembly of devices. R&D will, however, remain the responsibility of the headquarters of Mindray in Shenzen: "This area is like Silicon Valley for medical devices and equipment."
