The immediate target opportunities for Optiscan are:
Optiscan has stated that the dermatology market is a medium term proposition for which a partner has not yet been identified.
The market for flexible endoscopes is estimated at US$1.2Bn million a year. It is dominated by Japanese camera companies, specifically Pentax, Olympus and Fujinon.
Optiscan has partnered with Pentax to introduce its miniaturised confocal microscope to this market. Pentax has an extensive sales force and service infrastructure throughout Europe, Japan, USA and South East Asia. It seeks to increase its market share by gaining competitive advantage through new and exclusive technology, providing a natural alignment of goals and strategy with Optiscan.
The global rigid endoscope market is estimated to be US$1.0Bn million a year. The market is more fragmented than that for flexible endoscopes. Some of the more significant participants include leading microscope companies such as Carl Storz, Leica, Richard Wolf, Stryker, Zeiss and Olympus.
Optiscan is looking to establish one or more partnerships to identify the likely initial applications. This would be followed by development of clinical pilot investigations and the design of the business models that will capitalise on the market position of those partners.
The global market for research confocal microscopes is believed to be worth US$375M a year.
The utility provided by Optiscan’s miniaturised, high resolution, hand held scanner has the potential to expand the scientific fields that can be effectively researched with confocal microscopes. New in vivo research applications can increase demand from this significant and established market. It also has the advantage of easier entry as there is a lower regulatory threshold.
