Beach Medical was founded in 1984 by CEO Bill Kroeger a former manager with OEM Becton, Dickinson.

"I stuck to what I knew, which was clinical laboratory, and developed a burgeoning niche in the refurbished equipment arena," Bill Kroeger said. "People are always looking to contain costs and recognize it is a significant bang for their buck to get high quality, refurbished equipment at a fraction of what it costs new."

Today, Beach Medical covers the whole spectrum of clinical lab equipment and reagents, including distributing new devices and consumables.

"Inventory is king," Kroeger says of their vast, 10,000-foot Costa Mesa, Calif. warehouse stocked floor to ceiling with equipment, which overflows out to an enclosed yard. "When people need something, we like them to step into our 'warehouse store' showroom and say, 'I'll have one of those.'"

Their inventory includes chemistry analyzers for blood testing such as lipids, glucose and enzymes; complete blood count hematology analyzers, coagulation, urinalysis, histology and other devices.

"The analyzers are usually tethered to a laboratory information system (LIS) that drives them so the information is analyzed and collated with some data reduction; it comes out with numbers that everybody can relate to," he explained. Customers for these essential test devices include physician office labs (POLs), clinical reference laboratories, hospitals, and nearly any provider requiring blood analysis.

Beach does about 90 percent of its business in refurbished equipment but is also an authorized distributor for several major manufacturers of technology, reagents, controls and calibrators. Most new items are sold in their local geographic region in Southern California, while refurbished devices are marketed worldwide.

"For new equipment we're typically authorized to market in a designated territory...but with the used equipment--we can go worldwide, and usually do," Kroeger said.

Nevertheless, laboratories are a shrinking market in the last 10 years or so, Kroeger observed. But the company is focused, lean and fit for survival
and success. "We are small and versatile, not like a big company that has to run all its decisions through corporate hierarchies. If we see an opportunity somewhere we go for it."

Fortunately this year is far better than last year in overall sales, so there are some signs of recovery in the lab sector. "Last year at this time everybody was wrapped tight. People said you should be busy and conventional wisdom had it that way, but it didn't work out. Customers weren't even buying used equipment. The whole market was static," he said. "We're much busier now."

Read DOTmed's industry sector report on clinical research equipment:
https://www.dotmed.com/news/story/11457

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