International Biomedical Engineering Technologies (IBE Tech) is an Egyptian developer and manufacturer of medical equipment with headquarters in Giza , Egypt . The company is a spin-off of International Electronics – Biomedical Division where it was the research and development arm of this giant distributor of medical and pharmaceutical equipment and supplies for 8 years. Since day one, the team of IBE Tech had a clear goal to make high technology medical equipment available at low cost. This goal became a mission that continued to draw on the professional as well as the personal commitment of everyone who joined this team to make health care better in our country and in similar less fortunate countries around the world. We have made some significant steps towards this goal in our short history. However, we still have so many more steps to make to reach our goal. This requires keeping and growing the team at IBE as well as allocating the resources necessary to continue on without delay.
During the past eight years, a lot of effort and investment have been put into building the current structure of projects and personnel at IBE.
A summary of such efforts and the thoughts of our technical team are as follows:
• The efforts to establish this team started in 1990. It only became more formal and had significantly more resources starting 1998. The team started with three members and increased now to become more than 40.
• The team started with virtually no development tools and managed to collect all the necessary tools that are required to develop this kind of high technology with strong support from International Electronics. The company now has the development tools and the trained personnel to perform some of the most complicated design tasks in the industry today.
• Given that the expertise of medical equipment design was not widely available locally when the company started, we started with staff composed mostly of carefully selected fresh graduates. The kind of training and exposure to modern design concepts transformed them into some of the brightest engineers in the industry. In fact, we now provide companies like Tetrad Corporation in the United States with consultation services in software development and these companies stand witness to the outstanding character and performance of our engineers. Our real strength and value lie in this fine collection of professionals in this team.
• We managed to establish a strong link with the academic community in Cairo University , Helwan University , Misr University for Science and Technology and others to help our development team be on the cutting edge of technology. Over 50 scientific papers have been published in prestigious conferences and journals have been conducted at our facility or with a substantial participation from our team and each of these publications acknowledges our support. This has had a significant impact on the image of the company locally and internationally.
• The team of IBE is determined to continue their pursuit of improving the quality of health care and life for all humans. This underlying moral is what separates us from others who look only for profit. Accompanied by a profitability margin that is among the highest in the industry, we feel that we will be around for long enough to see our goals become a reality.
• We owe gratitude and loyalty to those people who invested in our team during the past three years. As much as the current situation is hurting us, in any new arrangement of the company's ownership, we have to make sure that those people are satisfied with the outcome of their investment.
IBE offers to the market a variety of products that fit the needs of the overwhelming majority of population in the world for good health care delivery at low cost. We offer these products under brand name “IBE Technologies” and they are available for the markets in Egypt , the Arab countries, and the world.
Our philosophy has three main strategies:
• Development of low cost basic medical equipment based on our own proprietary technologies. This approach has the advantage of being able to customize products to the unique demands of individual markets. One example of that is the Egyptian market, which heavily favors products that offer the basic features at the lowest possible cost and ability to persevere in the harsh operating environments.
• Joint development of low cost medical equipment offering high-end capabilities. The idea in this approach is to team up with some of the well-known names in the field of biomedical equipment design. This allows taking advantage of their high technology while maintaining the low cost of development. Such strategic alliances are important for acquiring high technology and to offer a wide range of medical equipment models of varying capabilities.
• Manufacturing under license of medical equipment. Since the R&D capabilities of any medical equipment manufacturer cannot include all types of technologies, it is common to acquire models from original equipment manufacturer (OEM) sources to amend their line of products. We follow the same policy here at IBE. Besides the advantage of having a wider collection of products, we take advantage of the much lower cost of assembly and testing here in Egypt to offer these products at a lower cost than that offered by the original manufacturer with no sacrifice in quality.
