PROFILE • BUSINESS
STATE OF INNOVATION
Alain de Salaberry
Tim Gillett discovers how French laser company Quantel has survived and thrived since its formation in 1970
F
or someone who spent the first 10 years of his career in banking, Alain de Salaberry has cashed in on the
photonics industry very effectively.
De Salaberry’s company, Quantel, was originally formed in 1970 – and when he bought it in 1993 it was still a relatively modest operation, specialising in scientific, mainly tuneable lasers and operating on an annual turnover of around €3 million. Fast-forward 20 years and the Quantel Group has more than 300 employees worldwide, 110 distributors globally, and offices in France (the company headquarters are in Paris), Germany, USA, Brazil, and Thailand and China. These days Quantel offers
products that meet the requirements of industrial, military and scientific applications including: pulsed solid-state lasers (Nd:YAG, Nd:YLF and Nd:Glass); fibre lasers for marking and engraving, atom cooling and trapping; tuneable dye lasers; and high-power laser diodes. De Salaberry admits that he had no in-depth knowledge of lasers when he started the company, despite graduating from a polytechnic where he studied quantum physics, but could see the potential of the laser market. He explains: ‘When I bought
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Quantel in 1993 I also acquired the activity of a small company in Clermont Ferrand, in central France. The company had gone into bankruptcy, but this gave an opening to me and I decided to purchase its business in ultrasound for ophthalmology. It was this decision that allowed us to develop the medical division of Quantel, and also to introduce our first lasers for photocoagulation (a process for treating a range of eye conditions, involving the use of lasers to cauterise blood vessels, and also in urological and gastrointestinal
medical procedures). De Salaberry continues: ‘This was in 1995 – it seems like a very long time ago now. But it was a crucial stage in our development; we continued to develop the medical division and the industrial/medical scientific divisions in parallel and
been the basis of all our strategies – to bring new applications, new functions, and new products to the market
Innovation has always
they still each represent approximately 50 per cent of our global activity.’
The economic conditions over the last few years have represented a challenge for Quantel, but a wide range of products and applications – along with a constant effort to innovate and stimulate laser markets – have brought the company success. ‘At one point we had 350 employees,’ says de Salaberry, ‘but we sold the dermatology division last year. In this particular market I felt that we were too small compared to other, bigger
Quantel’s headquarters at Les Ulis, on the outskirts of Paris LASER SYSTEMS EUROPE ISSUE 21 • WINTER 2013 @lasersystemsmag |
www.lasersystemseurope.com
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