Word: cardiac
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When an engineer at a semiconductor factory in Watertown, Mass., collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest, David Collins, the plant's health-and-safety manager, was on the scene in two minutes with an automated external defibrillator (AED), a device that can jolt a heart back to its normal rhythm. precious minutes before paramedics could arrive, Collins followed prompts from the AED and gave the engineer two electric pulses that saved his life...
...almost anyone. The devices have spread to all sorts of public places, and their U.S. sales, already worth $200 million, are growing at about 30% a year. The engineer probably didn't much care that the AED used on him was made by a little company now called Cardiac Science. But the firm has its own back-from-the-dead story to tell...
Based in Irvine, Calif., Cardiac Science was teetering on the edge of oblivion in 1996 and had no sales--none--as recently as 1998. At that time it was trying to sell a different type of defibrillator to hospitals and was getting crushed by medical-equipment giants like Medtronic Physio-Control and Philips Medical Systems. But then it abruptly changed its game--and its fortunes...
...late 2001, Cardiac acquired Survivalink of Minneapolis, Minn., for its AED technology and Artema Medical of Sundbyberg, Sweden, for its international sales channels. Last year Cardiac increased its direct-sales force from 18 to 55. It also added eight international sales managers to sell to 40 countries and aggressively went after nascent segments of the market, like schools, employers, doctors and dentists...
While Survivalink was on track to sell $19 million worth of AEDS in 2001, Cardiac sales in 2002 more than doubled, to $39 million. Though precise industry numbers are elusive, Cardiac controls 15% to 25% of the market. "We're small and nimble," says president and CEO Raymond Cohen...