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| Peterborough General Manager Sue Kernahan |
Danish devicemaker Coloplast is forging ahead with plans to add jobs in the U.K. as part of a global strategy to boost numbers for its chronic care business.
The company will create 150 new positions in its Peterborough-based facilities and has already started recruiting for the first 50 jobs, CEO Lars Rasmussen and executive vice president for chronic care Kristian Villumsen told staff on a recent U.K. visit. Most of the new jobs will be in Coloplast's chronic care division, a business the company hopes to double by 2020. The positions will be based in the Peterborough offices, a neighboring warehouse and dispatch center, which currently employs 300 of the company's 350 U.K. staff members. Peterborough General Manager Sue Kernahan and her team drew up the plan, and the initiative will be backed by major company investment.
"Getting the right people is critical to the success of our plans," Kernahan said in a statement. "I am extremely proud of the team we have in place already--people with a real commitment and passion to make a difference to the lives of our users who depend upon us in so many ways. Now we need to expand the team with people who share that commitment and passion."
Increasing operations in the U.K. could help Coloplast generate some upward momentum, as the company continues to bounce back from ongoing vaginal mesh litigation. In March, the devicemaker paid $16 million to settle lawsuits over its vaginal mesh inserts, spurring talk of global resolution for other med tech companies that produce similar products. In May, Endo Health Solutions ($ENDP) followed suit and agreed to pay $830 million to settle 20,000 lawsuits, resolving a "substantial majority" of its vaginal mesh-related cases, the company said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Coloplast faces pushback across the pond as the company fell through on promises to create jobs at its U.S. headquarters. In 2007, the devicemaker struck a deal with the city of Minneapolis to expand its local workforce in exchange for $3 million in tax breaks for a new $39 million facility, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports. But Coloplast cut jobs instead of adding them and paid $600,000 in penalties to the city of Minneapolis as result.
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