South American Sales
&
Support Subsidiary Scheduled to Open in First Quarter of 2011
Dec. 6, 2010 (Marketwire) --
IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 12/06/10 -- BIOLASE Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLTI), the world's leading dental laser company, announced today the opening of a sales and support subsidiary in Seoul, South Korea, to expand penetration in the fast growing Asian dental and medical markets and provide service, education and technical support to the Company's existing 15 distributors, and rapidly growing, in the Asia-Pacific region. The Seoul office will be headed by Sam Son, who has been appointed Vice President of Asia-Pacific Operations, and will report directly to Chief Executive Officer Federico Pignatelli. Son is a veteran sales and marketing executive with more than fifteen years of experience as a general manager in Korea and Asia for U.S. medical devices companies and distributors. He has owned the principle BIOLASE distribution operation in Korea for seven years.
BIOLASE is headquartered in Irvine, California, and also maintains a European support subsidiary in Germany, BIOLASE EUROPE GMBH, to cover the European and Middle Eastern markets, and plans to open a subsidiary in South America in the first quarter of 2011. In North America, the Company is distributing on a direct mode and also through Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ: HSIC) and Benco Dental. Schein International is a distributor in select European countries, Australia and New Zealand.
Pignatelli commented, "We have decided that we need a more focused, direct link to Asia to take advantage of the vast current and future opportunity we see in that dynamic part of the World. Sam Son has been the President of our Korean distributor and, in that role, has been the most successful international distributor in the history of BIOLASE. He has sold more than 750 Waterlase® and Waterlase MD? dental laser systems, our Flagship products, in the South Korean market and managed in achieving a remarkable market penetration of approximately 5 percent just with our high end all tissue lasers. He is the right person to expand our presence in Asia and provide support to our existing and future distributors."
Pignatelli concluded, "Our selection of South Korea is dictated by its strategic geographical position in the very center of Asia, close to all high growth economies and new promising markets. South Korea is also where we have been the most successful, so it constitutes a perfect platform to efficiently support further market penetration and expansion to other Asian markets.