Kodak to buy PracticeWorks, French unit Trophy Radiologie

Accordingly, Kodak will
24 July 2003

Kodak, the world leader in dental X-ray film, expects this acquisition to vault the company into the leading position in the DPMS and dental digital radiography market much the same way that the company's 1998 acquisition of Imation's medical imaging business boosted Kodak to the market-leading position in medical dry laser printing.

"We will be able to offer choices within a full spectrum of dental imaging products and services from traditional film to digital radiography and photography," says Dan Kerpelman, the president of Kodak's health imaging group, and senior vice-president, Eastman Kodak Company.

"We will also be able to provide innovative IT to digitally integrate dental images with patient health records. This info-imaging capability, ultimately, will enable dental professionals to manage patient care from the front office all the way through treatment with high-quality Kodak images at key points in the process. Such marrying of imaging and information is at the core of our growth strategy for the health imaging group," he adds.

PracticeWorks currently is the leader of a growing market for DPMS in the US and has made solid inroads in Europe and other parts of the world. Trophy Radiologie was the first company to develop and sell intra-oral dental digital X-ray detectors and is the worldwide market leader in dental digital radiography, or DR. (DR allows dentists, orthodontists and oral surgeons to capture high-resolution digital images.) DPMS allows dentists to manage a variety of dental front office functions, such as scheduling, billing and record keeping, and is evolving into a more complete patient management tool that extends to treatment planning and delivery.

Kodak estimates that worldwide industry sales of DPMS exceed $200 million annually and are expected to grow 8-10% per year. The company also estimates that current dental digital radiography sales worldwide total $100 million to $120 million annually, yet the penetration rate of DR remains low in the US and other large markets. About 13 per cent of dental offices in the US account for these sales, according to the leading trade publication Dental Products Report, along with a correspondingly low percentage of dental offices in the rest of the world.

"The market opportunity is significant," says Kerpelman. "And what makes it significant is this key fact: While dental DR has been available for a number of years, the time has now arrived where its value is becoming important not just to early adopters, but also to more mainstream practitioners."