Ellex moves to state-of-the-art headquarters

The ASX-listed company has moved into a 2.8 hectare state-of-the-art site in the north Adelaide suburb of Mawson Lakes, which allows its machine shop, clean rooms and administration to be co-located for the first time. The building also features a Controlled Environment Room (CER), which is a high-tech, dust free space where the lasers are built to eliminate any risk of contamination.Ellex is hopeful the move will result in a reduction in costs and manufacturing time per unit, while also providing room for further growth. According to executive director Dr Meera Verma, Ellex has almost doubled the laser and ultrasound side of the business between 2013 and 2017, while production of its microcatheter iTrack has also increased to 50,000 units a year.{{quote-a:r-w:400-I:2-Q: The new facility positions us well and has given us the capacity to grow and explore a number of other opportunities on the global stage. -WHO: Dr Meera Verma, Ellex executive director}}“The largest area we have an opportunity to expand into is glaucoma because we have a unique combination of products – we’re about the only company in the world that has a laser and a catheter to treat glaucoma,” Verma said.“The new facility positions us well and has given us the capacity to grow and explore a number of other opportunities on the global stage. We also have co-located our machine shop, which really improves the input of our machine shop.“It allows us to actually consider swapping out imported parts for locally produced components and that has huge potential for assisting our profitability as well as our market reach,” Verma added.While glaucoma treatment products currently represent the largest portion of Ellex’s business, Verma said the company was developing a new product for age-related macular degeneration that was due to finish a three-year clinical trial in 2018.“It’s a very gentle laser and it help rejuvenate cells in the retina that have been affected by macular degeneration to help people recover their sight and stop it from getting any worse,” she said.“We’ve got people using it for degenerate case studies to see how well it works in this particular area so doctors have it right now but to get maximum commercialisation it will take until probably next year until we see a pick up in sales and direct revenues from it.”