Siemens Healthcare Becomes Siemens Healthineers, Looks To Expand
By Jof Enriquez,
Follow me on Twitter @jofenriq
Siemens Healthcare announced that it has rebranded as Siemens Healthineers as it looks to add new offerings to its imaging and diagnostics portfolio. In explaining the name change, the German conglomerate emphasized its engineering and scientific expertise in creating healthcare applications.
"Going forward as Siemens Healthineers, we will leverage this expertise to provide a wider range of customized clinical solutions that support our customers business holistically," said Siemens Healthineers CEO Bernd Montag in a press release.
In addition, the renamed company will "continue to strengthen its leading portfolio across the medical imaging and laboratory diagnostics business while adding new offerings such as managed services, consulting and digital services as well as further technologies in the growing market for therapeutic and molecular diagnostics,” stated the release.
Siemens’ healthcare business has been busy developing new technologies in the past year, with one deal involving a biopsy robot equipped with ultrasound and MRI technology. The company also scored FDA approval for an expanded indication for its SOMATOM computed tomography (CT) machine for lung screening. In May, it inked a pact to integrate Thermo Fisher Scientific’s real-time PCR system into Siemens’ VERSANT kPCR Molecular Solution. The unit is also eager to be more active in acquisitions when they fit the company's strategy, Montag told analysts last month.
During Siemens' second quarter FY 2016 analyst conference, company president and CEO Joe Kaeser elucidated on their M&A plans.
“In general, we have to find strategic priorities: it's about areas of growth, it's about profit pool, it's about the competencies which we can add. It's important that this asset or this investment capital used as synergies to the greater good, otherwise, better off going it alone,” Kaeser said. “And the fifth one is, you know, paradigm shifts which subsequently will change the business model of some sort of player.”
Since being given more operational freedom nearly two years ago under Siemens' Vision 2020 restructuring, the healthcare division has performed well, growing 11 percent with a 16.5 percent profit margin in the last quarter of 2015. As company executives had expected, the momentum carried over in the first three months of this year, when the unit registered a 16.7 percent profit margin, and grew revenue by 3 percent to €3.3 billion ($3.8 billion) due to a solid showing by the diagnostic imaging business, according to second quarter figures from Siemens.
“We continue to perform very strong in healthcare, and that in particular, also referring to the highly competitive market in the U.S.,” said Siemens CFO Ralf P. Thomas during the conference.
Siemens has said before that its healthcare unit will remain part of its long-term, strategic core portfolio, but speculations persist that it will eventually sell the business. When asked about his plans for healthcare, Kaeser said the unit still has room to grow, but his response was indeterminate.
“If you look at the imaging space, you'll see yourself where we are, and who we are, and what we do. Ultrasound and the life sciences – smaller ticket items, obviously, and that's what we do as we speak. If it comes to the second, bigger piece of the healthcare company, that's more the diagnostics area. If you ask me again in a year from now about how great that business is, you'll be getting a good answer,” Kaeser answered the last question of the conference call.