Lime Associates secures European distribution for a US medical device business

8th May 2013

A Yorkshire business has helped a new company that has been spun out of global medical technology business, Smith & Nephew.

Sheffield based medical manufacturing consultancy, Lime Associates was engaged by Bioventus, a new business created between Smith & Nephew’s Biologics division and health technology equity investor Essex Woodlands, to establish a European supply chain for its medical devices.

Lime Associates Supply Chain Director, Steve Langron explained the background to the project; “The challenge that the Bioventus team faced was the need to build the capability to sell their products world-wide, independent of the Smith & Nephew infrastructure, but they lacked supply chain expertise.

Bioventus contracted Lime Associates to identify and negotiate with suppliers who could provide “third party logistics” services for its medical devices. We identified appropriate service providers in Europe, Canada and Australia and managed a competitive quotation process in each region to ensure that Bioventus benefitted from the most competitive rates possible.”

Bioventus’ Vice President of Operations and Quality, Anthony James was delighted with the outcome and said; ” When Bioventus was spun out of a larger organization into a stand-alone company, we found ourselves completely devoid of supply chain expertise. By contracting with Lime Associates, Bioventus was able to establish global distribution services in Europe quickly, efficiently and cost effectively. Lime Associates not only provided the labour and legwork to get the job done but they brought a missing expertise that allowed Bioventus to set-up quality third party logistics providers while building the appropriate internal capabilities. Lime Associates provided top notch work with detailed documentation that allowed clear and concise decision making.”

The first region to start implementation was Europe and goods are now shipped from a central location in Holland direct to hospitals in a number of European countries including the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. There are detailed plans to continue the roll-out to all European countries later in 2013. As Lime Associates identified service providers, Bioventus recruited permanent staff to manage the resultant global supply chain. Lime Associates has now handed over to the new recruits who will continue the implementation across Europe, Canada and Australia.

Categories: Supply Chain Management, Health Technology, Medical Device, Start Ups