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November 12, 2007
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MEDPORT LLC’s Chuck Miga, left, vice president
for product development, and Larry Wesson, president and CEO, pose
with some of the company’s products, which include everything
from self-cooling salad containers to supplies for diabetics
PBN PHOTO / FRANK MULLIN |
Innovating
in health and wellness
By David Ortiz
PBN Staff Writer
MEDport LLC – a Providence-based
consumer products development company that specializes in medical and
wellness accessories – honors the tragedy that marks its past even
as it moves into a bright future.
The company is on a roll, with two new product lines being sold across
the country by such national retailers as Sears, Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart,
GNC, CVS/pharmacy and Bed, Bath & Beyond.
The success of those products, and the promise of more than 100 others
that MEDport currently has in development, has set the company on course
to grow its revenue by tens of millions of dollars in the next five years,
said Larry Wesson, MEDport’s president and CEO.
The company’s strong performance reflects the passion and determination
of its owners to keep MEDport moving forward after the death of MEDport’s
founder in March of 2005.
Jeffrey M. Jacober, a prominent Providence businessman and philanthropist,
died with his wife and 15-year-old son when a single-engine airplane that
Jacober was piloting crashed while on its way to Penn State University,
where Jacober’s college-age son was to play in a lacrosse game.
Gregg Weingeroff, a Cranston businessman and philanthropist, and his wife
and 10-year-old son were also killed in the crash.
Company CEO Wesson, Brian Carey, MEDport’s executive vice president
of sales and marketing, and Chuck Miga, executive vice president of product
development and global operations, decided with Jacober’s sons David
and Michael that MEDport should continue operations.
They recapitalized and reorganized the company in August of 2005 as a
limited liability partnership with three ownership stakes: one held by
Wesson, Carey and Miga, one by David and Michael Jacober, and one by Ironweed
Capital Advisors, a Connecticut-based venture fund.
“Everybody involved in the process was committed to keeping company
going,” Wesson said.
Today, Wesson, Miga and Carey are moving MEDport forward in a direction
that honors Jacober’s legacy and vision for the company as a world-class
developer of “cool products in the wellness and health arena,”
Carey said.
Innovation is ingrained in all aspects of product development and throughout
the organization, Wesson said. MEDport’s development team pores
over national retail data and scours the shelves looking for what’s
not there.
“We don’t talk a lot about innovation – we do innovation,”
Wesson said. “It’s about bringing new value to the individuals
who are going to use our products.”
The result of such innovation is the company’s Fit & Fresh brand
of food containers, which Carey describes as “creating a system
for eating healthy while living life on the run.”
Fit & Fresh containers come equipped with such features as chill packs
that keep salads and other food cold for up to six hours, and dressing
dispensers that store salad dressing in a sealed compartment until ready
for use. Fit & Fresh containers also come with original recipes for
healthy eating from celebrity chef Jon Ashton.
MEDport will sell more than a million Fit & Fresh units this year,
firmly establishing the company as a player in the $1 billion food storage
market. The Fit & Fresh brand doubled in revenue this year, and currently
accounts for roughly one third of MEDport’s business, Wesson said.
“We see the possibility for Fit & Fresh to be a $25 million
to $40 million business over the next three to five years,” he said.
In September, MEDport launched its Sharps “On the Go” Transport
and Disposal product, the first and only personal needle and syringe disposal
container to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The product, a small, lightweight hard cast container, is designed to
help the thousands of diabetes patients who manage the disease with self-administered
insulin injections to properly dispose of their syringes.
People with Type I diabetes give themselves insulin shots up to five times
a day, according to the American Diabetes Association. As a result, an
estimated 3 billion used syringes end up being disposed of illegally in
the trash each year.
MEDport’s Sharps “On the Go” containers are designed
to safely carry unused syringes until use, and then convert to a permanently
sealed storage container for medical waste by flipping the patented lid
over to the other side.
Sharps “On the Go” is already being distributed nationally,
including at Wal-Mart pharmacies and by CVS under its own brand name.
MEDport is currently developing a second phase of sharp implement products
to complement this one, which is quickly growing in popularity, Wesson
said. •
Company Profile: MEDport
LLC
OWNERS: OGV LLC, D&M LLC, Ironweed Capital Advisors
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Health and wellness products development
LOCATION: 23 Acorn St., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 30
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1996
ANNUAL SALES: WND
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