Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) will invest $60 million in an intraocular lens manufacturing plant in Malaysia. The plant is expected to employ about 500 people and be operational next year, producing 1 million sets of IOLs a year.
IOLs are implanted after cataract removal. Cataract product sales account for almost 70% of Abbott’s Medical Optics sales. The company’s growth in the cataract segment outpaced global market growth, Abbott said. It attributed its performance to sales of its Tecnis lenses; Abbott recently received a CE mark for Tecnis Symfony, an extended range of vision IOL.
During the first half of 2014, Abbott had $605 million in medical optics sales out of a total of $2.7 billion in device sales. Medical Optics is Abbott’s only growing medical device segment with sales up 14% during the first half; its Vascular business was down 3% during the first half and Diabetes Care slipped a steep 27%.
The Malaysian plant will be located in Kulim Hi-Tech Park, with the first products from it not expected until the second half of 2016.
“The facility … will supply to the global IOL market,” Divisional VP of Global Operations for Abbott Medical Optics Diane Beno told reporters at a groundbreaking ceremony for the plant.
She noted that 22.7 million cataract surgeries were expected to be performed this year, a figure expected to increase to 27.1 million by 2019.
“Absolutely, we can see the growing trend for IOLs. To support this growth, Abbott needs this new facility,” Beno said.