Samsung is widely known for its consumer electronics; its televisions, Blu-ray and DVD players, home theater systems, and of course, its mobile devices, are all well-known and widely respected. But there's a lot more to Samsung than just hardware for the home, as evidenced by Samsung Electronics America's recent purchase of NeuroLogica out of Danvers, Massachusetts.
NeuroLogica is one of the leaders in Computed Tomography (CT) scanner manufacture, with such names to its credit as the BodyTom and the CereTom systems, a pair of portable CT scanners that are said to rank among the world's finest. While the terms of the deal between Samsung and NeuroLogica weren't disclosed, it does give Samsung a lot of extra power in the market by giving the company access to not only NeuroLogica's product line, but NeuroLogica's customer base as well.
Samsung, for its part, plans to add more fodder to its own medical-related product lines to reinforce its own presence in the field. That presence is actually fairly light right now, and appears to be mostly limited to ultrasound machines. But that limited presence is also an excellent explanation of why Samsung bought NeuroLogica in the first place, and it actually seems to relate back to a vision statement about Samsung's position in the market in 2020.
It's safe to say that much of the planet is "graying.” The rise of the baby boomer generation into its "golden years" is opening up a lot of new opportunities in terms of the healthcare market, and that means plenty of room for firms to get into the market and provide those goods and services that are likely to be needed as healthcare in general gets to be on the rise.
Meanwhile, Samsung wouldn't be able to get much of a presence going in the marketplace on the strength of just a few models of ultrasound machines, so they needed to get some sound backup going that gave them a full product line. Traditionally, there are two ways to get a product line going: make it or buy it. Samsung seems to have chosen "buy it," and thus, picked up NeuroLogica.
It's a safe bet that Samsung will continue in this path for at least a while, picking up new products to add to the line which it can release under its own familiar branding. This is likely to give Samsung great presence in the field, and more than likely, make it a force to be reckoned with in medical device supply and healthcare in general, keeping to its desired path and its goals for the near-term future.
Edited by
Allison Boccamazzo
