Edwards Lifesciences in the heart of the world

It's been 50 years since Miles Edwards, a retired engineer, had a great idea and introduced it to a young surgeon. That's how Edwards Lifesciences, a big medical company, was set up and created the first heart valve.

Edwards earns more than one billion dollars and invests around 12% of its revenue in research and development. It is today one of the biggest medical and hospital technology manufacturers and creators worldwide.

Edwards head office for Latin America has been located in Brazil for 20 years, from where it operates in most countries. The presidency of this giant company has been commanded by the biophysician Fernando Jorio, who was interviewed by Top Team for this issue.

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Top Team: How important is Edwards for Brazil?

Fernando Jorio: Edwards is the worldwide leading heart valves company, whose branches are spread over one hundred countries and whose turnover overtakes one billion dollars. It is structured in Europe, Japan, USA, and Latin America. The head office for Latin America is located in Brazil, where all the leading staff works. Edwards´ focus is mainly on Latin America, as it has grown around 20% a year.

Top Team: So, is Brazil turnover already significant for Edwards?

Fernando Jorio: It certainly is. Not only the turnover, though, which is expressive, but also the fact that Edwards has grown a lot within healthcare, especially within the heart valves segment (we are the leaders also in Brazil). Besides, there is the hemodynamics monitoring with products considered critical for Intensive Care Units, which is a growing area for us. Edwards earns around 30 million dollars in Latin America and Brazil is responsible for 50% of it.

Top Team: What do you expect for 2008?

Fernando Jorio: A lot. Edwards has already started investing a lot in new products, which have been very successful with cardiologists. Besides, we launched a new heart valve, Magna Easy, which has been widely accepted. Those successful launches will allow Edwards to increasingly strengthen its operations in Latin America.

Top Team: What are the differences between a biological heart valve and the mechanical ones?

Fernando Jorio: Edwards focuses on biological valves, because they are strong and long-lasting, and well accepted by physicians. The biological valve is much better. Besides, when you work with a biological valve, it will last around 20 years. Besides, most patients who receive a biological valve replacement do not need to take life-long anticoagulant therapy after surgery, while the mechanical valve lasts only nearly 10 years.

Top Team: Will you be making use of some strategies within the second semester, mainly due to competition, which set up a manufacturer in the countryside of São Paulo?

Fernando Jorio: Edwards has strongly invested in Brazil, we restructured and strengthened our operations here. We divided the operations into two business units, which are: HTV and CSS (heart valves and canules) and the other business unit is the Critical Care, for critical care medicine for ICU and vascular area; we have hired new personnel and we have invested in training both to our staff members, who are constantly sent to our head office for updating training, and cardiologists. Edwards is also on the way to launch new products and is also part of a big worldwide technology project: the Transcateter Valve, a totally innovative technology. This valve avoids opening the patient´s chest. It is inserted two ways: through femoral artery or through apical region by doing a minimal incision, that is, an innovative surgery that is less dangerous for the patient. Here in Brazil we have already started our work with Anvisa (Health Surveillance National Agency), so that we can bring this technology to Brazil and make it closer to the technology used in developed countries.

Top Team: Speaking of Anvisa, how do you see its work in Brazil, as some executives complain about it whereas others prefer not to comment about it. What about you? What do you think about it?

Fernando Jorio: I can calmly speak about it, as I believe Anvisa was able to bring a lot of benefits to healthcare in the regulatory area, and I think Brazil really needs this serious work in order to gain trust abroad. There are undoubtfully changes to be carried out, as well as the need of investing more in order to gain agility regarding bureaucracy. The industry has the right of charging, but on the other hand, they must understand that Anvisa is necessary and important; otherwise we would have bad quality products on the market, what would probably harm us, directly or not.

Top Team: What are the main threats for Edwards?

Fernando Jorio: Part of the government refund concerning our products. Edwards hopes that this situation gets better and we become able to make use of technology available today for the Brazilian people. We are also concerned about having healthy competition on the market, competitors who do not have harmful products for health what can consequently harm us. But the money used for healthcare is what really really worries us. Edwards is concerned about it as we need to improve our healthcare system, to be careful about the population in need and bring more products. For that, the Ministry of Health needs to increase the public health system refund.

Top Team: What does Edwards expect for the future?

Fernando Jorio: Edwards is a company that likes to work with innovation, technology, and has focused its work on cardiology, anesthetics and critical care. We invest around 12% of our annual worldwide turnover in development and research we have already ripped the benefits. We expect to reach great results by revolutionizing cardiology around the world.