Medical device importer claims Australian firm violates contract
By Jung Min-ho
Hoin Medibiz, a medical device broker based in Korea, will file a damage suit against Sirtex Medical Limited, an Australia-based medical device manufacturer, for “unilaterally breaching a sales contract.”
Hoin is now detailing its plans for a $7 million (7.3 billion won) lawsuit with legal consultants in Australia after the contract was terminated early this month by Sirtex, which had allowed Hoin to sell medical device, called SIR-Spheres, in Korea.
The appliance is used to treat patients with inoperable liver cancer.
The two parties signed the exclusive sales contract on May 1, 2007. It was supposed to expire in 2018.
Also, Hoin will file for an injunction against Emergo, an international medical device regulatory consultant that helped Sirtex obtain approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to sell the products directly here.
Hoin said it had put enormous effort into laying the groundwork since 2007 before starting to sell the products in 2011. And demand for the medical device has greatly increased since that time, the company added.
“This is a lawsuit against the international firm that holds sway over small companies like us,” Hoin Marketing Director Kim Il-hong said. “We invested huge amounts of money and time laying the groundwork.”
For more than three years, Kim said, the company spent about 3 billion to 4 billion won to set up the current sales environment, including marketing to major hospitals as well as getting the approvals from the drug ministry and the Center for New Health Technology Assessment.
It is yet unclear why Sirtex terminated the contract. The company has not responded to The Korea Times’ interview request sent on Friday.
However, in its email sent to Hoin on May 9, Sirtex wrote that it was moving into a much more direct sales model in most markets, where it is in charge of sales and marketing and local companies like Hoin take charge of imports and distribution only.
Sirtex also claimed that Hoin had failed to meet its sales target, which was stated in the contract.
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