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Ventana Medical Systems Inc. (VNSI) |
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CEOCFO Current
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This is a printer friendly page! Ventana develops, manufactures and
markets instrument/reagent systems that are important tools used in the
diagnosis and treatment of cancer and infectious diseases BIO: Ventana’s instrument and reagent systems are
used in clinical histology, cytology, and drug discovery laboratories around the globe.
Customers consist of hospital-based histology labs, independent reference labs, medical
research centers, and drug discovery laboratories of the largest pharmaceutical and
biotechnology companies in the world. The Company’s instrument-reagent systems are
designed to standardize the preparation and staining of patient tissue or cells mounted on
a microscope slide for examination by a pathologist. Ventana instruments include the
BenchMark® XT, BenchMark®, NexES® IHC, NexES® Special Stains, TechMate™,
Renaissance™, EBAR™ and the Discovery™ . Ventana offers an extensive menu
of detection systems and primary antibodies for use on Ventana's Automated Staining
Systems. CEOCFOinterviews: Mr.
Malden, what attracted you to Ventana Medical Systems Inc.? Mr. Malden: “My attraction to Ventana was two-fold. On a purely personal level, I wanted to leave the northeast and move west, where I was raised. I grew up in a medical family and the opportunity to be with a company focused on healthcare, making people better through diagnosing disease more quickly and accurately, was attractive to me.” CEOCFOinterviews: What exactly does Ventana provide to its customers? Mr. Malden: “We provide our customers with automated instrument and reagent systems solutions which automate chemical reactions on glass slides. This automation standardizes the staining process through eliminating many manual steps and enables labs to run sophisticated tissue tests more easily.” CEOCFOinterviews: Do you have particular areas of focus and do you see a broadening of your applications? Mr. Malden: “Ventana is focused on the histology laboratory. At the moment we provide customers with advanced staining solutions. Our longer term vision is to progressively automate other upstream and downstream work cells within the histology lab including primary staining, tissue preparation and imaging. Our technology for managing chemical reactions on glass slides also has applications in the drug discovery arena and we have an instrument specifically designed for this segment.” CEOCFOinterviews: How do you reach your potential customers? Mr. Malden: “Ventana is a global organization with offices in Tucson, Strasbourg France, Tokyo and Melbourne Australia. We have a direct sales force in most geographies calling on hospital labs, clinical labs, etc while other markets are served by specialist distributors.” CEOCFOinterviews: Is there a lot of competition in this field? What sets Ventana apart? Mr. Malden: “There is competition in the market, however we believe our largest single competitor continues to be manual slide preparation, ie, the global staining market remains largely manual. Ventana’s latest generation of instruments automate approximately 60 manual work steps. This level of automation is also far in excess of the level of automation offered by competitors. Importantly, we have a significant intellectual property portfolio around that technology.” CEOCFOinterviews: What are you doing in research and development? Mr. Malden: “Our R&D efforts are focused on both further automating histology work cells as I mentioned earlier and expanding our test menu across our currently installed base. Specifically, we are working on a primary stainer, which we intend to launch in the second half of next year marking our entry into the largest segment of the histology lab today. We are also investing in developing a strong in-house life science capability in support of our customers testing needs.” CEOCFOinterviews: You have several system generations – how are your customers updated? Mr. Malden: “Ventana’s instruments are driven by software and as our test menu expands, we upgrade installed instruments with new software enabling customers to take advantage of new test menus where possible. In some cases, our earlier generation instruments do not have the on-board technology to run some of our newer tests and in those cases customers need to make a decision to purchase a newer instrument if they want to take advantage of our latest technology and associated test menu.” CEOCFOinterviews: You had a good quarter; what do you need to do to continue growing the way you are? Mr. Malden: “We need to continue a relentless focus on business execution. We believe that there is core category growth around 15%. We have committed to growing our revenues at approximately 20% per year over the next few years and to do that we need to deliver what our customers expect, while continuously driving new automation technology. Ventana will gain share by differentiation based on intellectual property, the value of our automation and superior customer service.” CEOCFOinterviews: How is the market worldwide? Mr. Malden: “There is no doubt that the North American market is the largest today in terms of dollars, but international markets are growing. Our global organization leaves Ventana well positioned to benefit as international healthcare systems evolve and reimbursement rates improve.” CEOCFOinterviews: You recently won an award for 2003 Financial Executive of the Year by Robert Half International. Will you tell us about that and what do you see as your role as CFO? Mr. Malden: “I believe that the role of CFO is to act as a strategic partner, providing the organization with a clear understanding of the financial implications of strategic and operational decisions while at the same time ensuring strict compliance with applicable rules and laws. Certainly the CFO needs to play a key role together with the CEO in setting a “tone at the top” with regards to business ethics and acceptable business practices. Finally, the CFO needs to ensure that communication to both internal and external constituencies is as timely and accurate as possible.” CEOCFOinterviews: Why should investors be interested in Ventana, and what should they know that they might not realize when they look at the company? Mr. Malden:
“Ventana is a leader in a rapidly growth segment of the much larger in vitro
diagnostics market. Understanding disease in tissue is becoming an increasingly important
element of diagnostics and Ventana is well positioned to take advantage of this
trend. We have leading instrument and reagent systems with significant patent
protection across both our technology and methods. In addition, the Company has an
experienced management team focused on providing diagnostic tools which assist our
customers in delivering the best possible patient care.” disclaimers |
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