Eric Collins (b 1936) was managing director of Gambro UK from the late 1960s until he retired in 2001. Within the UK renal community he was among the best known of industry leaders.
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I left the RAF after 4 years having trained as a radar engineer and after a few years involving extensive travel I realised that it was time to settle down.
I married in 1960 and worked for 2 or 3 years in the pharmaceutical industry which led me, logically, to the medical equipment field.
I worked for Cambridge Instruments, then Rank Electronic Tubes, but it was with the Swedish Company AGA that I was offered the job to run a new company, Gambro which was starting in the UK. We began in 1971 from a very small office in my house in Sidcup. Probably the first house in the road with a Telex machine.
Gambro was, to say the least, an unusual company. IT was formed after a meeting between Holger Crafoord, an extremely successful industrialist, and Professor Nils Alwall of Lund, Sweden, an early innovator and researcher in the dialysis field. Holger Crafoord believed in employing young people and leaving them to get on with it, with minimal interference, to develop the business as they thought fit.
The company remained a wholly owned, private company until around 1982. I think it became part of a financial group after Holger Crafoord’s death.
As far as the UK was concerned the market prospects were not favourable . The referral rate of people with renal failure was quite low compared to the rest of Europe and most units were using Kiil dialysers which had to be rebuilt after each use. The only disposable dialysers available were coils produced by Travenol and Extracorporeal.
Our first dialyser sales were to units using Kiils who wanted to try small numbers but it was Guy’s Hospital who became our first big customer, because their unit including the room where the Kiils were rebuilt had burned down.
In spite of the difficult market for Gambro we began to develop our company in the UK. We had a kidney preservation machine which was being used by some transplant units, and a number of peripheral devices such as single needle devices which kept us busy. I was lucky to find some really good colleagues who became part of a successful team. By the late 1970s we had also added a new all plastic disposable dialyser which achieved a much higher level of acceptance.
Among other companies, Dylade continued to offer machines bought on contract by control purchasing, but Lucas disappeared as did Cambridge Instruments from dialysis.
The 1980s saw a rapid increase in patient referrals even in the UK which inevitably resulted in more competition – other companies included Cobe, Fresenius, and Nipro. Haemodialysis continued to dominate. But interest in peritoneal dialysis increased as did other extracorporeal techniques, enabling us to sell products for haemofiltration, haemodiafiltration, and plasmafiltration. Gambro also developed the technique for reliable delivery of Bicarbonate concentrate.
In my view, our approach set the scene for an extraordinary relationship which lasts even to the present 2025. We placed great emphasis on relationships, ‘being useful’ was our mantra. The need for close contact was assisted by opening a service centre in Manchester, and later in the early 1990s in Glasgow,
Education and training became an important part of our service and we started prescribed courses for nurses and technicians. – relationships and genuine friendships were formed.
So the Gambro package was : – state of the art technology, engineering quality, well trained and motivated engineers and sales people, a commitment to education and training, and reliable dissemination of information. All together amounting to ‘being useful’.
I think also that our ability to fashion our own appraisal of the UK market without recourse to the central management was an important advantage. Another part of our success was the fact that our staff turnover was so low.
These meetings took place in interesting cities all over Europe and it is no surprise that they were so well attended. Companies had to be there for their customers. What better place to develop relationships than over a meal or a drink? Cynicism is quite often the recourse of people for whom opportunities of this kind do not exist.
Haemofiltration and haemoperfusion came to join the available range of treatments as did automatic monitors for PD delivery . Gambro did not enter the PD market very successfully although we continued to work on it through the 80s and 90s. It occurs to me that Gambro had as much of a problem with the PD market as did Baxter did with the machine market.
Nevertheless there is little doubt that our approach was the right one. We became in the 1990s the major supplier of dialysis equipment in the UK .
However, the personal and human approach to the market came under increasing pressure. NHS bureaucrats wanted to be in, centralising purchasing. We saw new purchasing teams so frequently it became tiresome.
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In 2001 I retired with some regret for lost friends but tired of bureaucrats who, in my opinion did nothing to save money or contribute to patient comfort or safety.
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There is no doubt in my mind that the period 1970-2000 was a very successful co-operation between the dialysis industry and the medical profession. I am proud to have been a part of it.
Last Updated on April 12, 2025 by John Feehally