MEDICA Trade Fair Spawns Leads for R.I. Firms
December 17, 2007 | Print this page | Share This | Email this page
MEDICA, the world's largest medical trade fair, attracted approximately 137,000 trade visitors from more than 100 countries. The share of international visitors was 40 percent. There was a broad spectrum of innovations and new products, including leading technologies in e-Health, diagnostics, disease preventions, telemedicine and emergency medicine, represented by the total of more than 4,300 exhibitors. At the Best of New England Pavilion, Rhode Island companies and RIEDC staff shared space and staffed the booth on a rotating basis. The Rhode Island businesses took advantage of the many benefits of a regional trade booth: professional meeting facilitation services provided by the RIEDC, a turn-key booth package and Best of New England Signage, and free shipping of promotional materials and promotional brochures to and from the show. Two receptions were arranged for the delegates and their business partners. One hosted by North East Utilities and the other was hosted by the U.S. Commercial Service in the USA Pavilion. Prior to departure, the RIEDC worked with the U.S. Commercial Service in Germany to create a customized listing of five qualified potential overseas representatives who expressed an interest in each participating company's products and services. The RIEDC's display table highlighted Rhode Island as a top investment destination while Dianne Ritter, Business Development Lead for the Life and Sciences sector, met with numerous foreign companies to explain the advantages of doing business in Rhode Island. The RIEDC also participated in the U.S. Commercial Service "Investing in the World's Largest Market for Medical Technology: USA from Exporter to Strategic Presence,' a conference designed to encourage Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. The event was targeted at more than 4,000 foreign exporters of medical technology at MEDICA. Results MedPort's Sasha Corrente, a sales manager for the company, successfully used MEDICA to find a contact for CE Marking as well as to test the international market. The company developed five new pending agent/representative relationships and three new serious sales leads that may close in the next 12–18 months. Biomedical Structures successfully used MEDICA to understand and find distribution channels in the European Union, test the market and gain additional market exposure. During MEDICA, the company signed a new joint venture agreement valued at approximately $500,000 and developed five new serious sales leads in the German market projected at $10,000 during the next 12–18 months. If these relationships move forward, the resulting sales would support 10-20 additional jobs. Comments "MEDICA proved to be a fantastic opportunity to introduce Biomedical Structures to the European Marketplace and beyond. Through the International Partner Search, we were able to meet with companies interested in our contract manufacturing services with genuine engineering challenges for us to help resolve. While attending MEDICA, we met with a customer from Japan with a new business opportunity that has resulted in a development proposal as well as a recent visit to our facility in Warwick this December. Had this introduction taken the usual path of e-mail correspondence through an original web search of Biomedical Structures, this meeting at our facility may or may have not have happened and/or it could have taken several months to coordinate. The International Partner Search helped create this connection and many others while MEDICA provided the platform for BMS to showcase our ability to help medical device companies find engineering textile solutions. We look forward to MEDICA next year and will continue to utilize the IPS for increased globalization of the BMS brand.' —Todd Blair, National Sales Manager, Biomedical Structures
