NZ company - tissue repair product

Interesting article - http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/10635849/Listing-likely-for-tissue-repair-company

Listing likely for tissue repair company.

An Auckland company that makes human tissue repair products using animal organs is "highly likely" to list on the sharemarket to fuel growth.
Mesynthes has been named this year's fastest-growing manufacturer in the Auckland and upper North Island regions in the Deloitte Fast 50 list, which ranks businesses that have had rapid revenue growth in the past three years.
The medical manufacturer uses sheep stomachs to produce Endoform - a regenerative tissue substitute used to treat wounds such as burns and ulcers, and reduce scarring.
Mesynthes chief executive and founder Brian Ward said Endoform had been used on hundreds of thousands of patients since 2010, when the product was approved for use in the United States.
"That's really going to be where we succeed in terms of a large market," he said. Mesynthes had raised about $20 million of private investment since it was founded in 2007, but publicly listing could be a way to fuel growth.
"A company like this is going to need capital, it's going to need the ability for shareholders to trade their shares. It's highly likely that would be through listing."
Mesynthes was originally a startup in Lower Hutt, but relocated to Auckland in March.
"The company has scaled up dramatically since we left Wellington."
Ward, a veterinarian by trade, said that since moving, the company had built a new manufacturing facility and its staff numbers had more than tripled from 15 to about 50.
"I could see that ramping up quite significantly over the next five years. It's quite a different company to what it was 12 months ago."
The shift had given it greater access to a larger pool of talent and had brought in people from overseas.
"We see the business at least doubling each year."
Mesynthes had grown rapidly in a short time because before it had a commercial product to sell, it spent about five years working on developments, gaining regulatory approval and finding partners.
"There's just those inherent constraints in medical-related technology that means it takes you some time to get into a position where you can sell product."
Although Ward wouldn't go into specific growth details from the past three years, he did say the business was growing rapidly, with a multimillion-dollar turnover.
"We've come off a very, very low base line."
The US is Mesynthes' sole market, but applications have been filed with regulatory authorities in Europe and North America, where its products are expected to be commercialised within 12 to 24 months.
"It's an uncertain process, you never know how long it's going to take," Ward said. Mesynthes also had plans to sell the products in New Zealand as it focused on markets outside the US in the next two years.
It was working on a whole family of tissue regeneration products, and the launch of a new product for reconstructive surgery was imminent.
"We're expanding the family of products we have based on the core technology."
There were other companies, mostly in the US, using other animal organ tissues to repair and regenerate soft tissue, but Mesynthes had a competitive advantage, he said.

"The particular material that we're using just seems to form a lot better.
"It's got some really interesting properties that haven't been seen to the same degree before, so that's given us a real advantage."
Because Mesynthes used sheep tissue, working out of New Zealand provided access to a plentiful source of raw material with good traceability, he said.
The company operated entirely out of New Zealand, but establishing parts of the business overseas could be an option for the future, he said. Fairfax NZ
- The Dominion Post