As Convatec completes a multiyear effort to turn around the business, new CEO Jonny Mason plans to invest in research and development for future growth.
The London-based medtech firm, which specializes in infusion care, wound care, ostomy care and continence, announced plans last year to expand its Boston-based R&D facility by 50%, and open a new facility in Manchester, England.
Former CEO Karim Bitar joined Convatec in 2019 to develop a turnaround strategy for the company, which had struggled with profit warnings and a falling share price since it started trading on the London Stock Exchange. That plan involved focusing on Convatec’s strengths, doubling its R&D investment and upping capital spending to rebuild its factories. Unfortunately, Bitar died suddenly last October while on medical leave.
Mason, who joined Convatec in 2022 as CFO, has taken on Bitar’s legacy after being named CEO in October. The turnaround is complete, Mason said, and Convatec is now aiming for sales growth of 6% to 8% next year, supported by a series of new product launches in each of its categories.
MedTech Dive spoke with Mason about what’s next for the company and its investment plans.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MEDTECH DIVE: What are your top priorities as CEO? Is it a continuation of your work with Karim? Has anything changed?
JONNY MASON: Something has changed, which is that we’ve increased our ambition. Karim very successfully took us through the turnaround strategy, and we acknowledged that the turnaround was complete last year. So it was time to step up a level.
What Convatec is trying to do now is more than it’s ever done before. We are launching more products in 2026 than we’ve ever done before. We’re investing more capital. We’re increasing capacity in our factories. So all of that requires the whole Convatec organization to execute more effectively, and to live and breathe a culture of purpose and performance.
What segments do you see the most growth in for Convatec?
All four of our categories are going to grow faster next year than they did this year because we’re launching new products in all of those categories. But if you were to push me, infusion care is where our business is growing fastest, and that’s because pump therapy is expanding in its treatment of patients, both in diabetes and also in Parkinson’s disease. We’re the world leader in the manufacture of infusion sets. The use of pump therapy as opposed to pills or multiple daily injections is increasing quickly around the world. So that piece of our business, we expect that to grow in double digits from next year onwards.
What are some new devices to watch for?
In [the infusion care] space, the most exciting thing is Parkinson’s disease at the moment. AbbVie launched their Parkinson’s therapy a couple of years ago, and that’s growing really fast. And we are the exclusive supplier of infusion sets to them. But coming now are two other suppliers of Parkinson’s disease therapies: Supernus and Mitsubishi Tanabe. We will be launching with them the infusion sets to support their Parkinson’s therapy. Beyond that in infusion care, in a few years‘ time, we’re working on higher volume and higher viscosity infusion sets, which will enable things like chemotherapy and/or pain relief to be treated with pump therapy.
We launched a new product only yesterday [September 28] in the U.S. market, and this was an intermittent catheter called Cure Aqua. It’s made of a hydrophilic polymer, which is friction free with just the application of water, and it’s ready to use and it’s in the value end of the market. So this is a product which is going to make life much better for a number of catheter users in the U.S.
We launched eight new products between 2022 and 2025. And then in 2026 and 2027, we’re doing eight more. So the pace of launch is accelerating.
At the start of the year, the FDA had raised concerns with infusion sets made by subsidiary Unomedical in a warning letter. Do you have any updates on that?
We are making good progress. We are in a very constructive dialog with the FDA. We understand exactly what their observations are. The observations did not relate to product quality nor to patient safety, and therefore they have not impacted our sales or our production at all. What they observed was that they said we weren’t managing our complaints process well enough, and we accept that entirely. We’re working with them to change it. They said the same thing, by the way, to various other operators within the diabetes sector.
We’re working constructively with them, making good progress. The nature of these things is that they take time, so we would like to think that we can get through all of this by the end of 2027.
About a year ago, Convatec announced plans to invest $1 billion into R&D in the U.S. and the U.K. What else can you tell me about that?
It’s our intention to invest more and more in research and development, and in growth, as we go forward. We were delighted to announce the investment over a decade of a billion dollars in Manchester and Boston.
The U.S. for us is a key center of activity. Although we are U.K. listed, half of our research is [in] the U.S. and half is U.K., roughly speaking. We will be continuing to invest in the U.S. in R&D, in sales, in commercial, in operations going forward.
