MUMBAI: The Subash Chandra promoted -- Essel Propack, the largest manufacturer of laminated tubes has acquired 85 per cent stake in Tacpro Inc., USA, and Avalon Medical Services Pte Ltd, Singapore.

The companies are players in the field of advanced medical device design and development and offer over 100+ years of collective experience in the medical device industry, informs an official release.

Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra, while declaring the strategic intent, stated, "I have always held a firm belief close to my heart. Faith in innovation and organized growth. It is by walking this path that Essel Group has reached the position it holds today. Giving birth and nurturing Industries which no one thought would exist.

"And today, once again Essel has proved that its Faith is as strong as ever before. This is just a humble step towards a brighter morrow. A morrow with endless opportunities, promising future and unlimited growth."

While announcing the acquisition in Mumbai, Essel Propack vice-chairman and MD Ashok Goel said, "Medical devices arena is our new and third horizon, after laminated tubes and plastic tubes. Our objective is to leverage our knowledge of polymers and polymer processing so as to add a new dimension to our business. While it offers endless opportunities and potential for growth, it is in sync with our knowledge & capabilities, strengths and core competence of both Essel Propack and Tacpro."

Tacpro CEO Nitin Matani said, "This is the coming together of two pioneering entities, with a common objective to leverage the collective strengths for global excellence. This is the first step towards realizing my vision of bringing India to the forefront of the medical device industry. By combining Essel Propack's resources and expertise in high volume manufacturing, this partnership will also allow us to fulfill that vision by providing expanded services to our global customers."

Since its inception, Tacpro is a provider of innovative medical device designs, converting ideas into medical device solutions. The company pioneered as the first full-service provider of high quality medical devices specializing in catheters and delivery systems on the West Coast of USA.

Essel Propack, Tacpro and Avalon have huge synergies notably the knowledge of polymers & polymer processing and global benchmark technology. On this significant development, Doug Wilkins, Vice President - Operations at Tacpro spoke, "This partnership will enable Tacpro to meet the high quality expectations of the medical device market while continuing on its path to be a worldwide leader in Medical Devices."

According to the official release, medical devices is not developed in Asia, which is a thickly populated market and a virtual Greenfield. Figuratively, the global medical devices market size is $ 172.6 billion. Of this, the contract manufacturing comprise $ 16.7 billion. The catheter market alone is about $ 5.7 billion of which the USA has $ 2.3 billion share. The industry growth is estimated at 7 per cent -10 per cent. Tacpro Jeff Kraus said," This is an awesome opportunity to be able to provide our services to a larger and wider market."

The present team at the company, headed by Nitin Matani, the chief executive officer, will continue to manage the operations of the Company, under the guidance of Essel Propack.