Flexible Medical Packaging Ltd

In late 2009, Lancashire-based Flexible Medical Packaging (FMP) decided to actively pursue overseas markets for a new range of sterile medical products that it was producing under the brand name Medicross Healthcare®

Joining UK Trade & Investment’s (UKTI) Passport to Export programme helped the company to identify potential markets for the Medicross Healthcare product range. Then, it secured a grant from UKTI’s Tradeshow Access Programme (TAP) towards the costs of travelling to Germany to attend Medica, the largest medical exhibition in the world.

Having decided to break into the German market, in December 2010, the company commissioned an Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) report, asking UKTI to identify potential local distributors. The following year, it signed a distribution agreement with one of the companies named in the report, ApoFit GmbH.

“The German UKTI team were particularly helpful and informative, giving us the low-down on how to crack the market there,” says Howard Lewer, Business Development Manager for FMP. “Using OMIS to find a distributor saved us about 18 months of trial and error looking for the right match.”