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First catering to human needs, a Largo company earns plenty of kibble with a veterinary instrument.
By CHRISTINA K. COSDON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 4, 2002
Rod lay on the operating table, his vital signs closely monitored as the anesthetic did its job. The doctor placed a probe into Rod's left ear, watching a video screen as he guided the instrument deep into the canal.
There it was. The screen magnified the tumor he was about to remove.
Today Rod, a 6-year-old tabby cat, spends his days playing with his brother, Reel, at Park Animal Hospital in Pinellas Park, enjoying life as one of Dr. Mac McGlamery's hospital cats.
The instrument McGlamery used, a video vetscope, has been on the market just five years but has become important to many veterinarians practicing and teaching at animal hospitals and universities worldwide.
The video vetscope is made by MedRx, an 8-year-old Largo company whose first product was the video otoscope, for human ears.
Sales of the video vetscope grew to the point that MedRx created a veterinary division, which now constitutes half the business, said company president Ron Buck. The company's total sales last year were $6.4-million, he said.
The vetscope's origins trace back to 1996 and an Alabama veterinarian who suggested that MedRx make a diagnostic device for animals similar to the otoscope designed for humans.
Dr. Louis Gotthelf of Montgomery saw how the otoscope worked and decided he had to have a similar device to use in his veterinary practice.
MedRx president Buck liked Gotthelf's idea and loaned him one of his engineers, Ron Priest, to develop the instrumentation.
"He would fly up here, and we would work all day long," Gotthelf recalled. Priest would return to MedRx, which was then in Seminole, and work on the prototypes. The two worked together about four months to develop an instrument that satisfied Gotthelf.
"It's a tapered stainless steel probe containing lens elements surrounded by fiberoptic light fibers," Gotthelf explained. "It has extremely crisp, clear optics which magnify the image, and the probe has a light at the end to illuminate the whole field. In the probe is a 2-millimeter stainless steel tube that we call a working channel that we can send instruments through."
The video vetscope was introduced in January 1997 at a North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando.
The device can be used for diagnostic and surgical work on everything from an animal's ears to its eyes, nose, teeth, skin and internal organs. Other instruments can be plugged into the portable equipment to record procedures on videotape or computer for transmitting images to remote sites for specialist consultations. It also prints photographs.
McGlamery, the Pinellas Park vet, bought a video vetscope for his practice a year ago and reproaches himself for not buying it sooner.
Without the ability to see deeply into a cat's or dog's L-shaped ear canal, many ear diseases are not treated properly, he said.
He didn't know Rod had a tumor in his ear until he examined it with the vetscope. (The cost of that particular surgery to a client, he said, is $250.)
"It's brought our level of diagnostic ability in ear treatment to a whole new level," he said. "Now we can get into areas we haven't been able to realistically work in before and with accuracy. It's opened a whole new area of work for a lot of vets.
"And the quality of medicine it's brought the client just blows you away. Now when I explain to clients that their dog or cat has an ear infection or a ruptured ear drum, I can give them a photo of it."
The video vetscope system isn't cheap. It costs from $10,000 to $16,000, depending on accessories.
McGlamery said it returns its value. After nine weeks of using the equipment, his office receipts increased more than $550 a day, he said.
In addition to hearing and veterinary care products, MedRx has diversified into telemedicine software.
"It enables physicians and health care specialists to work from remote locations," Buck said. Clients have included the military, prisons and children's crisis centers.
MedRx designs all its products and assembles, tests and ships them from its headquarters in Largo. "We contract to have the products built to our specifications," Buck said. "We add the software and do all the quality control."
With the new product lines, MedRx had outgrown its 6,800-square-foot plant in mid Pinellas.
This summer, the business moved to an 18,000-square-foot building at 1200 Starkey Road, where space is available for needed expansion.
The company has 28 employees, Buck said, and will be adding more. "We're looking for sales staff for both divisions," he said.