OREANDA-NEWS. HOYA announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire a majority shareholding in Wassenburg Group, an Automated Endoscope Reprocessing (AER) market leader in the Netherlands.

This strategic acquisition enables HOYA through its division PENTAX Medical to give its global customers complete access to a superior and wider portfolio in the field of flexible endoscopy from Endoscopes to AERs. The same synergies will also be driven by Wassenburg as the respective installed base customers and new customers will have a wider portfolio to benefit from.

Flexible endoscopy is approximately a \\$2.5B market globally and growing at an average 8 - 10% annually. The AER market is approximately a USD 1.0B market globally and growing at 10% - 12% annually. With this joint venture HOYA will now have a wider access to the global USD 3.5B market which also heralds a shift from a capital equipment company into the consumable medical device market segment.

The growth of the endoscopy market is driven by changing demographics, new minimally invasive procedures, new diagnostic technologies and new therapeutic endoscopic procedures which are increasing the number of endoscopy procedures. At the same time every endoscope after clinical use must be decontaminated with the same degree of rigor following every endoscopic procedure to prevent cross-contamination of patients. This underscores the importance of endoscope reprocessing and following disinfection guidelines to attain best practice and improve patient care. The market shift from manual to standardized automated processing represents an excellent growth opportunity for Hoya with the addition of Wassenburg's AER products.

This joint venture is about product synergies, channel synergies and geographic expansion. Wassenburg Medical Devices has direct operations and significant presence in western European countries with their leading edge AERs. Through this strategic alliance with HOYA, Wassenburg will now have a platform to grow into the US endoscopy market which is the largest in the world. In addition, Hoya's focus on the emerging growth markets of Asia Pacific, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa will now have wider product solutions. This strategic deal not only widens the portfolio for the HOYA customers but also offers a platform for growth into new markets and new segments.