Scaling innovative technologies

With the right objectives, resources and approach, healthcare companies can scale their operations rapidly says 3i’s Nikhil Patel.

3i is focused on supporting our partners in the pharma, life science and medical device supply chains scale innovative technologies to serve an increasingly global customer base. We often invest in companies at an inflection point where market opportunity and customer demand necessitates investment across technology, manufacturing, systems and team.

Over the past three to five years, our healthcare portfolio has more than doubled in sales. Achieving this growth has required rapid scale-up of manufacturing and service capacity, as well as support operations across supply chains and quality in increasingly complex markets.

Getting various parts of an organization to scale in concert is not always a straight line, but with aligned objectives, access to resources and a disciplined approach, our companies have been able to achieve tremendous outcomes.

ten23 health

With ten23, we aligned quickly with CEO Dr. Hanns-Christian Mahler in developing an ambitious growth plan that involved a rapid scale-up of lab operations in Basel and the acquisition and build-up of drug product fill and finish operations.

Within a few months of partnership, we established 50,000 square feet of lab space in Basel and began to build out the team, equipment and capabilities, investing significantly in assets and building a staff of 30+ full-time employees that continues to grow.

Shortly thereafter, we acquired Swissfillon, a leader in sterile filling of complex pharmaceuticals. We are committed to supporting the continued expansion of manufacturing capacity, including a recent investment in cleanroom space for visual inspection and cold storage, as well as additional space for device assembly.

ten23 also commenced a buildout of a new site to add two high-volume commercial filling lines, increasing its drug product fill and finish capacity by more than 10 times by 2025.

Cirtec Medical

We acquired Cirtec in 2017. At the time of acquisition, the company had three sites and [400] employees. Fast-forward to today, the company has [1,200] employees across [7] sites, which includes [180,000] square feet of organic expansion.

Over the past 18 months, we have invested heavily to support growth, including a greenfield site in Costa Rica and a Neuromodulation Center of Excellence in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, collectively adding over 100,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity. We have also added [x] square feet to Cirtec’s site in Lowell, Massachusetts, supporting high-volume thin film manufacturing, and doubled the company’s footprint in the Silicon Valley area, where we are supporting a number of highly innovative medtech companies.

We work hand-in-hand with our portfolio companies as partners, assessing the best opportunities for investment to not only support the needs of today, but position our companies to capitalise on medium to long-term trends. This is where we have the most fun in building partnerships and enabling our companies to succeed and make an impact on their respective markets.

Nikhil Patel is a Partner and member of 3i's Global Healthcare Private Equity Team. He can be contacted here.