Phillips Plastics Rebrands as Phillips-Medisize What’s in a name? A lot, especially if you ta

Phillips Plastics Rebrands as Phillips-Medisize

What’s in a name? A lot, especially if you talk to executives from Hudson, Wis.-based Phillips-Medisize Corp. Previously Phillips Plastics Corp., the company changed its name as a result of its acquisition of Medisize Inc. last summer. In the deal announced in July, Phillips bought Finland-based Medisize for approximately $140 million from Ratos AB, aprivate-equity group based in Sweden.

Phillips-Medisize provides design and manufacturing services to the medical device and diagnostics, drug delivery and commercial markets. The company has annual sales of just under $500 million, with 75 percent of total revenue coming from drug delivery, medical device and diagnostic products such as disposable insulin pens, glucose meters, specialtyinhalation drug delivery devices, single-use surgical devices and consumablediagnostic components.

“This name change represents the culmination of much hard work by theemployees of both the Phillips Plastics and Medisize enterprises,” President and CEO Matt Jennings said in news release.
“The new name will take full advantage of the wonderful franchises that both these companies have built over the last 30-plus years. We will work with ourcustomers, regulatory agencies and suppliers over the ensuing months to effectively execute this name change.”

As a result of the new moniker, the company’s website also will change to phillipsmedisize.com. Both the medisize.com and phillipsplastics.com sites will remain active “for the foreseeable future,” according to the company.

Jennings sees this latest chapter in Phillips’ growth story as another opportunity to improve the manufacturer’s value proposition.

“If our OEM [customer] is focused on taking things from ‘bench to bedside,’ we want to be there working closely to help them take their products from the ‘bench to the distribution center, ’”Jennings told

Medical Product Outsourcing. “In terms of the stable of services that we would like to expand on, one is in the area of small electronics. We don’t manufacture the electronics, but we do the integration of small electronics into devices. That’s acapability we’d like to do more of as our customers continue make smaller and smarter devices. We’re doing very complex molding and automated assembly and manufacturing. Every day we’re solving new problems for our customers and we want to do more of that.”

Jennings also said that Phillips-Medisize plans to expand in Asia, most likely through acquisition, to meet increasing demands from the company’s customers. But he was careful to point out that the desire to expand in Asian markets isn’t for expansion’s sake alone. There’s acustomer-centric growth strategy at work.

“Our primary strategy is to maintain the very good relationships we have with our customers—design through manufacturing. Our goal is to grow with our customer, and they’re faced with three primary challenges,” he explained. “First, as they encounter slower growth in primary markets here in the U.S., they need to find growth opportunities. Second, as things slow down, they need to shorten and shore up their supply chain and make it more efficient. And third, as they look to allocate resources, they tend toallocate resources toward growth, and this is where we can be a significant help. We help with speed to market. In order for them to grow, they need to be able to continue to innovate. We help them

innovate. We want to help them shorten their supply chains as they consolidate, and we want to continue to invest in the expertise and resources that help them design, develop and industrialize their products. So as our customers look toinvest in Asia for their growth, we’relistening to that. The reason we need to look at these markets is because our customers are looking at these markets.”

Jennings said a prospective “solid” acquisition target in Asia has a high standardto meet.

“Our ideal candidate augments—like Medisize did—what we’re all about. Somebody who is involved and has good design, development and manufacturing capabilities in medical device, drug-

delivery and consumable diagnosticdevices,” he explained. “We’ll also look for [a company] that is technology-oriented and, culturally, puts the customer first. That’s a good fit.”

With more than 2,100 employees, the company has 19 locations throughout the United States, Europe and China, including design centers in Wisconsin, California and the Netherlands.