Some local medical device and biotechnology producers:
3 Sigma Corp.
Alkermes Inc.Pharmaceuticals
Fidelity Orthopedic Inc.
Midmark Corp.
Optimus LLC
RAM Medical
Sources: Mike Sieron and Kevin Hartke
Since he returned from a recent medical technology supplier conference in California, Mike Sieron’s phone has hardly stopped ringing.
Sieron, president and chief executive of DG Medical in Centerville, says he can barely keep up with demand from customers looking for manufacturers who can design and produce medical-related devices.
“Our business has been exploding,” Sieron said in an interview in which his phone rang several times.
Sieron said he isn’t surprised by the jump in business, because Ohio has become a force in the medical device and bioscience-related industries, he and other industry observers said.
Sieron said he and Kevin Hartke, vice president of operations at Miamisburg’s Mound Laser and Photonics, recently tried to count all the medical device-related companies in the Dayton area and came up with 30. Companies like Gem City Engineering, X-Spine Systems, DRT Medical, Norwood Medical and others made the list.
“We’ve become a nice little bioscience hub,” Sieron said.
“The number is a lot bigger than that,” said John Lewis, vice president and chief operating officer of BioOhio. Lewis counts 65 medical device producers in the western and west central parts of the state.
Fueled by an aging population, the medical device industry is a $115 billion-a-year industry, growing annually at 7 to 10 percent, Sieron said. “When we talk about markets, it’s massive.”
Direct bioscience business employment in southwest Ohio totaled 13,406 people in 2011, according to BioOhio, a Columbus-based nonprofit that promotes bioscience businesses. Payroll was $1.1 billion in 2011, growing from 2000-2011 at at an average rate of 1.8 percent, even though there was a 2.4 percent decline from 2008 to 2010.
The average salary in the industry in southwest Ohio was $84,087 in 2011, according to BioOhio’s Ohio Bioscience Growth Report in 2012.
The medical device and equipment manufacturing subsector had the largest employment in 2011 among all bioscience subsectors with 4,732 employees. The second biggest subsector for employment was medical and testing labs, with 2,420 employees, BioOhio said.
When weighing total employment impact — direct and indirect employment — BioOhio said the industry employed or contributed to the employment of nearly 43,000 people, with $1.9 billion in labor income in 2010.
Northeast Ohio is the state’s leader in bioscience employment with 42 percent of the state’s bioscience companies found there, according to BioOhio.
At the MD&M medical device supplier conference in California last month, 70 northeast Ohio companies were in attendance, followed by 13 Dayton-area companies, Lewis said.
Lewis acknowledged that states like California and Massachusetts are probably bigger players in bioscience, as are some large cities like Minneapolis. But he said Ohio is holding its own.
Lewis pointed to Abbott Laboratories decision to build a $270 million nutritional drinks plant in Tipp City, a factory that will employ about 240 people when it launches operations late this year.
He also pointed to the growth of Midmark Corp., a Versailles-based producer of medical, dental and veterinary equipment that is searching for a Dayton-area home for its executives. Companies like Aptalis and Innovative Medical Device Solutions are well-established in Vandalia, while small start-ups like Dayton’s NovoSource are beginning to make a mark, Lewis said.
Larry Dosser, owner of Mound Laser, which serves the medical device industry, says the proliferation of such companies says “the face of manufacturing is changing.” It’s an “evolution” toward advanced manufacturing that often has to meet stringent customer and Federal Drug Administration standards.
Many of the companies in this arena are quiet and remain “under the radar,” Dosser said.
Mound is building a $4 million, 20,500-square-foot home in Kettering’s Miami Valley Research Park. Employees will move into the new building in May.
“We really see the medical device industry growing and expanding in the Dayton region,” Dosser said. “I think that’s good for all.”
Recently, Sieron of DG Medical hired a project engineer and a human resources generalist. He needs the generalist, he said, to help him recruit qualified employees.
“We’re behind the 8-ball right now trying to hire primarily skilled professionals — engineers, quality people,” he said.
Sieron expects to hire two, maybe three more engineers. He relies on relationships with universities with bioscience co-op programs to find the prospective employees.
Scott Koorndyk, the Dayton Development Coalition’s executive vice president, economic development and operations, said the region is blessed with the “building blocks” of an authentic bioscience hub, which to him means a “significant collection of companies, research institutions and supply chains.” Something that is “self-sustaining,” he added.
“Are we in the early stages of it (building a regional hub)? I think we are,” Koorndyk said.
He pointed to area assets like the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, local research centers like the University of Dayton Research Institute, as well as an array of firms that can tackle small machining of metal and composite parts, laser machining and more.
“The hand of cards we have is unbelievably strong,” he said.
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