From the August 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Fernando González, general manager of Welch Allyn Mexico, reinforces the idea of Mexico as a thriving market worth investing in. “Mexico poses a wealth of opportunities, both in our ambulatory care segment, which is the line we are most well-known for, but also in the acute care segment, which includes the up and coming clinics and government hospitals which are in dire need of improving and enhancing technology, and as a result, improving the patient’s experience in the hospital,” he said. “Welch Allyn has for a long time seen Mexico as a country of great opportunities. With our Mexico team, we can more closely align with end users in order to deliver the products they need.”
Alejandro Chávez, former country manager of GE Healthcare in Mexico, testifies on the importance of Mexico as a manufacturing destination: “we primarily began importing goods from the 1940s onwards to the 1980s during which time we established a large-scale office in order to sell locally. We have since constructed two manufacturing plants, one in Ciudad Juárez and the other in Monterrey. Indeed, Mexico is the country that has the most production plants outside of the U.S., which says a lot about the importance of the country for GE.”
Manufacturing activities in Mexico provide an important
Kurt Wicker, director general, BD
part of its total production for U.S. company Becton Dickinson. The first BD factory in Mexico, opened in 1957, was also its earliest factory outside the U.S. “In Mexico, BD has evolved towards the manufacturing of a wide range of products and we have many production plants in the country,” says Kurt Wicker, general manager of Becton Dickinson in Mexico. “We are very proud of having created a thousand jobs in the past two years, reaching a total of 3,500 employees in the country.”
Medical devices produced in the country by international companies are mainly allocated for export. Nevertheless, national demand is also an important incentive for productive investments in the country. Alfredo Merino, General Manager of Fresenius Medical Care, Mexico, backs this thought. “We bought the current manufacturing plant in Mexico, since the amount of demand from the Mexican market required us to increase production. We manufacture peritoneal dialysis solutions; some of the products that we manufacture here are exported to the U.S., but the majority is for the Mexican market.”
