Featured Professionals: Tyler Bradshaw, Stephan Doering

Distributors specializing in medical products and devices are vital to patient care worldwide, ensuring safe, efficient, and on-time deliveries to a range of care settings. Those focused on consumables are particularly well positioned for success thanks to their highly predictable and recurring demand.

Below, our Healthcare & Life Sciences Group discusses the investment appeal of medical consumables distribution and how our recent client sangro became a leader in the space.

A Vital Role in Patient Care

The global medical products and devices market is sizeable and growing, supported by many underlying trends. For instance, an aging population is fueling higher patient volumes and longer average lengths of stay, while medical advances are enabling people with chronic diseases to live longer. At the same time, a site-of-care shift from hospitals to outpatient and home settings is underway to drive greater care quality, convenience, and cost-effectiveness.

“Companies across the medical products and devices ecosystem play a key role in meeting expanding patient needs while improving their care, which is capturing investor attention,” says Stephan Doering, a managing director. “Consumables distributors are a prime example, drawing buyers with a combination of steady, repeat demand and a critical responsibility to get these items wherever they need to be.”

Such distributors that can provide reliable order fulfillment and deliveries will remain in demand and on investors’ radar. “Timely delivery and product availability are essential to patients, and the best distributors always have alternatives for out-of-stock products to ensure continuation of care,” notes Doering. “Excellent delivery metrics result in strong customer loyalty, retention, and stickiness, helping make these businesses highly resilient.”

However, businesses that can solve more challenges for their customers are especially valuable. This includes deeper healthcare logistics expertise. “Top consumables distributors can also strategically coordinate the entire supply chain, including sourcing, storing, repackaging, picking, and transportation,” says Tyler Bradshaw, a managing director. “This skillset creates more valuable customer partnerships as well as strong growth potential for investors.”

Beyond these themes, investors are also attracted to the segment’s distinct advantages of scale. “In distribution, there are significant economies of scale that can be unlocked through M&A, from better purchasing conditions to denser logistics networks to greater operational efficiencies,” he adds.

Looking ahead, the segment’s long-term growth trends, predictable recurring demand, and strong customer retention will continue to bode well for medical consumables distributors and their investors. This is particularly true for distributors with the scale needed to handle large volumes of deliveries across a wide variety of product types, geographies, and care settings.

“Scaled companies offering consultative solutions and best-in-class service for critical consumables shipments, like our recent client sangro, are highly differentiated, making them valued by customers and investors alike,” says Doering.

sangro: Critical to the Home Care Value Chain

Sangro is a distributor and logistics partner for the German home care sector, serving as a critical link between global medical device vendors, care providers, and patients who rely on essential medical aids. The company has built a reputation for reliability, scale, and deep product expertise in categories such as wound care, incontinence, ostomy, nutrition, and other medical consumables. Harris Williams advised GHD GesundHeits GmbH Deutschland, a portfolio company of Nordic Capital, on the sale of their subsidiary sangro GmbH, to Axcel.

The company’s value proposition is anchored in downside‑protected revenue: Most sales come from single‑use, non‑discretionary products, nearly all revenue is reimbursable, and much of it is generated by repeat customers. “Recurring revenue streams and a loyal customer base have enabled consistent above‑market growth for sangro,” notes Doering.

A major driver of this performance is sangro’s logistics platform. The company operates warehouses with significant capacity, automated labeling lines, and semi‑automated packaging stations, processing millions of shipments annually with an extremely low error rate and most orders delivered within 24 hours. In addition, its proprietary ERP system integrates purchasing, commissioning, shipping, and returns management, enabling real‑time order tracking, automated parcel labeling, and seamless API connections with customer systems.

This operational precision allows sangro to offer customers a true one‑stop shop with a wide breadth of products and brands, competitive pricing through volume bundling, and a suite of value‑add services including direct patient delivery, digital inventory management, white‑label packaging, automated administrative documentation, and clinically trained product specialists.

Vendors also benefit from the company’s scale and capabilities. It provides nationwide market access to home care providers and medical supply stores, collaborative forecasting and replenishment, MDR‑compliant importer duties, and tailored warehousing solutions.

“These combined strengths have resulted in substantial investor interest,” says Doering. “With an attractive, expanding addressable market and strong differentiation, sangro is well positioned to continue capturing share.”

Ubiquity Across Healthcare

Medical products and devices are ubiquitous throughout the global healthcare industry, playing critical roles in patient outcomes. And without medical consumables distributors, patients around the world wouldn’t be able to get the care they need.

“Across medical product vendors and a wide range of care settings, demand for these distributors will continue to expand,” says Doering. “Looking ahead, consumables distributors that can keep finding ways to enter new geographies, expand into more value-add capabilities, and build scale will see long-term success.”

To further discuss M&A opportunities within consumables distribution and the broader medical products market, please contact our senior professionals.