Elscint boosts West Coast presence

Elscint needs room to grow on the West Coast. The medical imagingvendor expects to open a new western regional office in OrangeCounty, CA, as soon as a lease is secured. More space is neededto house Elscint's expanding sales and service staff, said MarioR. Carranza, western region sales manager.

Carranza, former director of marketing and sales for ShimadzuMedical Systems (SCAN 9/13/89), was hired in December to boostElscint's regional presence. The Israeli firm's U.S. headquartersis in Hackensack, NJ.

Elscint has added an additional nuclear medicine sales representativeand nuclear service manager since hiring Carranza. More servicepersonnel will be brought on shortly, he said.

"We are putting more focus on service support based inthe west," Carranza said.

While nuclear medicine is Elscint's strongest modality in the17-state western region, the vendor hopes to boost sales of magneticresonance imaging and computed tomography scanners in the area.It relies totally on a direct sales force rather than dealersand distributors, he said.

Elscint's installed base in the western region includes:

• 165 nuclear medicine systems;
  
• 30 CT scanners; and
  
• five MRI systems.

The vendor's MRI effort accelerated last year with the introductionof the Gyrex V, a mid-field scanner. Sales of Elscint's Exel Sprint2000 CT system also kicked off in the second half of 1990.

User appreciation of Elscint's imaging technology is more firmlyestablished in nuclear medicine than in MRI and CT. Part of thechallenge of promoting the company's products is overcoming concernabout Elscint's viability. This image problem remains a factoreven though the vendor has made a dramatic financial turnaroundover the last two years.

Elscint's net income rose 35% in the first quarter of 1991(end-March), from $2.3 million in 1990 to $3.2 million. Revenuesrose 27% from $35.6 million in the first quarter of 1990 to $45.2million in the same period this year.

"We have to improve the perception of Elscint in the eyesof the marketplace. My charter is to put together a program andorganization that can properly represent the technology of thecompany," Carranza told SCAN.

Demand for MRI systems continues strong in California and thesouthwest. Elscint is competing for at least seven prospectiveMRI orders in the region, he said.