Owens & Minor bullish on ‘growth engine’

RICHMOND, Va. – Owens & Minor executives say they will use the company’s Patient Direct business to underpin a five-year strategic plan as the segment continues to outpace the market. 

Owens & Minor in December unveiled its Vision 2028 plan, which identified critical components for long term success: accelerating growth in areas of the business with high potential, optimizing businesses to drive stronger long-term profitability, and leveraging its strong balance sheet by investing across its platforms, says Pesicka. 

“Let’s start with our growth engine, and that's our Patient Direct segment,” said Edward Pesicka, president & CEO. “We have a proven commercial model across our core categories, including sleep, home respiratory, diabetes, ostomy, urology, and wound care. These are areas for investment, as we fill geographic gaps, add commercial resources, and invest in technology to improve customer satisfaction, grow revenue, and expand margins.” 

Technology investments include ecommerce enhancements to the company’s patient management platform and “innovative “digital marketing, says Pesicka. 

“Overall, we will use technology to rethink the patient journey,” he said. 

Realignment reaps “benefits’ 

Owens & Minor’s operating model realignment, launched in March 2023 to reduce costs, contributed more than $40 million “in benefits,” and the company exited 2023 with more than $100 million of run rate. The majority of that will be reinvested in the business, says Pesicka. 

“(On the Patient Direct side), we're aggressively adding commercial people because we believe, with the proven commercial model we have, as we scale that up, that can drive long term growth and we started adding personnel in the fourth quarter,” he said. “The other thing in Patient Direct is really around focusing on the sleep journey and making sure that we can have unique technology to capture and maintain our patients in that side of the business.”