One week after closing a deal to acquire control of STRATA Skin Sciences for $13 million, Accelmed has announced a much larger deal. The fund will acquire full ownership of US dental implant company Keystone Dental. The US company was founded in 2006 on the basis of older implant activity called Lifecore Biomedical. Private equity fund Warburg Pincus, which acquired and relaunched it, has invested $300 million in it to date.
The sum invested by Accelmed to acquire the company was not disclosed, but is probably substantially less than what Warburg Pincus invested. It is nevertheless one of the largest investments made by Accelmed to date in order to acquire activity. Keystone Dental's revenue currently stands at $40 million a year.
The US dental implant market is $1 billion a year, a third of the global market, and is growing at 5-6% a year. Penetration of the US market is nevertheless one of the lowest in the world. This anomaly results because mainly high-end brands marketing implants at $180-200 are operating in US companies, while the value brands at prices of $120 per implant or cheaper products are not important players in this market.
In Europe and Asia, in contrast, there is a substantial segment of value products. The Israeli players in the market, of which many are successful, play mostly in this market. Examples are MIS Implants, acquired by US company Dentsply-Sirona in 2016 for $375 million, and Alpha Bio, acquired by Swiss company Noble Biocare in 2008 for $90 million. There are other players that have not yet been acquired despite the prevailing consolidation market trend, such as Ab Dental Devices, Adin Dental Implant Systems, Cortex Dental Implants Industries, ARDS, and others.
Accelmed's idea is to later acquire an Israeli dental implant company in the value category, or perhaps more than one, and include its products as another brand within Keystone Dental marketed through the latter's distribution system. At the same time, Keystone Dental will continue marketing its premium products. Accelmed cofounder and managing partner Dr. Uri Geiger told "Globes" that there are good capabilities in digitalization of implants, digital printing of dental components, etc. in the Israeli market.
There are two current trends in the US market. One is consolidation of companies in the market, which has created problems for the activity of still-independent Keystone Dental. The other is growth in the dental implants market, with an increase in awareness and the number of people in the US having comprehensive health insurance that includes dental implants. As a result of enhanced awareness, there is an increase in the number of doctors qualified to make dental implants.
"Globes": Have you recently accelerated your deals?
Geiger: "The recent deals were the culmination of processes that began about a year ago. We always wait for the company to reach a price we have defined as attractive, and only then do we buy it. There are processes that do not yield results for this reason, and that's also all right."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 4, 2018
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