Gurit-Heberlein AG (CH-9630 Wattwil; www.gurit.com), a company specialised in industrial applications and medical engineering, is strategically expanding its health care division. Gurit Medical Business Beheer bv (NL-2181 Hillegom; www.medisize.com), the holding company of Gurit´s activities in the medical field, has acquired Donegal HealthCare (IRL-Letterkenny; www.dhc.ie) with retroactive effect as of 1 January 2002. In addition to the Dutch Medisize (respiratory products and OEM production of drug delivery devices) and the Czech joint venture Medisize CZ, Gurit now has a third clean-room facility for the production of medical and pharmaceutical plastic products.

According to Gurit, the additional know-how will enable the company to further improve on its strategic market position. While the company previously supplied primarily continental European customers, the new Irish subsidiary is also a key supplier of British and North American firms. With its additional technical competence (injection moulding, welding and gamma sterilisation), Donegal HealthCare reinforces Gurit Medical Business´s position as a “multi-technological system integrator” for medical, diagnostic and pharmaceutical administration systems and packaging solutions. Sales of some EUR 18m are achieved with 250 employees. It has been agreed not to release any information on the purchase price of the company, which is currently owned by the local management.

All in all, the health care division of the group achieved sales of CHF 168m in 2001 (2000: CHF 153m). Gurit´s other mainstay – industrial applications with high- performance composites – recorded sales of CHF 166m (CHF 135m). While the EBIT in this sector fell by just under 30% to CHF 13.4m, a 13% increase was recorded in the EBIT for health care, to EUR 19.3m.

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