F&P Healthcare targets market for cancer patients

A worker in the F&P Healthcare factory.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is aiming to move into the multimillion-dollar market for the treatment of cancer patients.

The company is investing nearly $2 million to fund clinical trials that will test the effect of humidification therapies on oral mucositis - which makes the mouth too sore for patients to eat or drink - and radiation burns caused by radiotherapy and chemotherapy for head and neck cancer.

The global market for the treatment could be worth about US$50 million ($77 million) a year, said the Auckland-based medical equipment manufacturer.

Chief executive Michael Daniell said the trial - in Australia and New Zealand - was part of a strategy to expand out of the traditional intensive- care ventilation market.

There was an opportunity to double or triple the number of patients who could use the firm's humidification technology during the next five to 10 years. The value of services provided to each patient could also be doubled.

"We see a pretty clear opportunity for really continuing to be able to double the business [revenue] every four to five years, which is what we've been doing for many years now," Daniell said.

Revenue last year was $289.5 million, of which 45 per cent came from respiratory humidification products, 44 per cent from treating obstructive sleep apnoea and 8 per cent from warming and neonatal products.

New devices for use in oxygen therapy were announced earlier this year and a product to help treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was expected to hit the market within the next six months.

Business development manager Jon Clausen said technology would be applied to new areas in a conscious shift away from current "comfortable" environments.

"This research project will give us the capability to apply our technologies and intellectual property to new areas of medicine, with cancer treatment being the first off the block, and deliver the scientific evidence of efficacy required to sell our products for use in new applications around the world," Clausen said.

It was hoped recruitment for the trial would be completed by August 2008, with a new product likely to be developed specifically for patients with head and neck cancer. However, the company aimed to get a product into the marketplace early next year.

"We won't wait until the end of the trial," Clausen said. "The trial will help us to convince doctors around the world that this is the way to go."

A contribution of $928,000 towards the cost of the trial from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology was vital.

"We'd like to think that we would get there eventually but we'd be looking at quite a few years down the track before we would have the resources to be able to take the project on."

He said the company attributed much of its success to the close relationships it had developed with staff at local hospitals.

"We almost consider both Auckland and Middlemore in particular as part of our research team," Clausen said. "The access that they gave us to themselves, I don't think we'd get it anywhere else in the world."

F&P HEALTHCARE

* $289.5 million revenue for the year to March 31.

* 98 per cent of sales from exports to 90 countries.

* 45 per cent of revenue from respiratory humidification.

* 44 per cent from treating obstructive sleep apnoea.

* 8 per cent from warming and neonatal products.

* Aims to double revenue every five years.