Puritan will always be in the forefront, meeting the needs of emerging technologies. Although the company, known at the time as the Oxygen Gas Company, originally directed sales toward the welding industry, its founder had the foresight to perceive that the experimental use of nitrous oxide coupled with oxygen would one day replace ether as the anesthetic of choice and place his company at the forefront of the surgical gas industry. [16], Oldest devices utilised for intermittent positive-pressure breathing (IPPB) therapy. While the Great Depression forced many companies to shut down operations or at least reduce its work force, the Puritan Compressed Gas Corporation, as it became known in 1931, continued to expand and never had to lay off an employee. Puritan unveils its transport media system while also receiving an Innovation & Technology Award from the Institute for Maine Family-Owned Businesses. This move allowed for an expanded product line and soon thereafter a name change as well, to Hardwood Products Company. The first company to produce oxygen west of the Mississippi, Puritan-Bennett has been known throughout its history as a leader in creating innovative medical technology and is widely recognized for developing such products as the MA-1 Volume Ventilator, which virtually replaced the cumbersome iron lung, and the 7200 Microprocessor Ventilator, which has become one of the most widely used … That same year the company made another entrance into the medical field by manufacturing one of its first pieces of medical equipment, the "Puritan Portable Oxyaerator," an oxygen humidifier. By virtually replacing the cumbersome iron lung, the MA-1 not only brought the company to the forefront of this market but made the Bennett name recognizable in the larger medical equipment field. 2006. Puritan supplies the project with samples for various uses. The company's success was due in part to its ability to take advantage of a number of new market opportunities. The future performance of the company will depend largely on home oxygen therapy, which has represented three-quarters of its home care business. After purchasing a number of home care distributorships, the company formed a new marketing department under the name Medical; however, after three years of modest success, all but a single Miami unit were sold. ALERT: Tremendous demand for COVID-19 testing supplies may lead to delays in response times, orders and fulfillment for many of our products. In 1956, the company acquired V. Ray Bennett and Associates, Inc.; a year later its name was changed to Bennett Respiration Products, Inc. That same year, Parker B. Francis handed over control of the company to his sons, Parker B. Francis III and John B. Francis, and the company expanded its medical catalog offerings to include almost all of the items that served the medical gas piping industry into the 1990s. The pilgrim hat is added to the Puritan logo to reflect and embody the dedication, honor and determination of the Puritan pilgrims. Line Expansion. It was then decided to consolidate the company’s administrative, sales and manufacturing divisions and locate all operations to Guilford, ME. In 2000, Tyco International acquired Mallinckrodt to become a Tyco Healthcare company. Puritan-Bennett was founded in 1913 by Parker B. Francis as a manufacturer and distributor of oxygen and hydrogen. The mid-1940s, of course, saw the company devote most of its attention to manufacturing war-related products, supplying the military, medical, and industrial fields with oxygen, medical gases, oxygen equipment, and industrial tools. In 1941, Puritan set up one of the first cascade oxygen filling systems in Baltimore, and by 1944 had begun producing a full line of cylinder valves for both military and civilian uses. President Ronald Reagan calls on NASA to build an international space station within 10 years. The company's organizational structure consists of the Puritan group, which manufactures mostly home care and gas products; the Bennett group, which oversees most of the company's hospital products; and Aero Systems, which supplies emergency oxygen systems for commercial and private aircraft. Puritan enters the medical woodenware market with the introduction of tongue depressors and aseptic wood applicators. Most of the specialized machinery was built by company personnel on site as it was not available for purchase on the open market. While Puritan-Bennett, as a competitor in a recession-resistant industry, managed to perform well through the end of the 1980s largely on the strength of hospital equipment sales, a number of changes in the health care industry forced the company to begin focusing on its fledgling home care market. Copyright (c) 2019 Company-Histories.com. The decision is made to enter the cotton tipping and sterile pack market laying the groundwork for a future in the development of swabs and specimen collection devices. Puritan introduces Cap-Shure® DNA specimen collection device to the world of forensics. Despite this inauspicious beginning, the company's commitment to alternative health care markets remained strong throughout the decade. Learn More.
All Puritan medical products bear the name and logo. 1920 brought a change of plan when toothpicks became difficult to find in Saginaw. Having grown more than 75 percent in 1994, this segment stands to expand rapidly as a result of the purchase of SEFAM S.A., the leading European supplier of sleep disorder products, that same year. Puritan rolls out new technology, producing foam-tipped applicators for industrial uses, as well as for medical and specimen collection applications. During the early 1980s, Puritan-Bennett fell behind some of the industry leaders in technology and the company's sales and profits fell accordingly: revenue increased only four percent between 1981 and 1984, and the company lost money in 1982 and 1984. – into the popular TV police drama genre and America’s cultural consciousness. Hardwood Products Company trademarks the well-known Puritan® brand. EnviroMax ®, EnviroMax Plus ®, and ESK ® Sampling Kit products address the environmental sampling needs of the food and drug industries. Another major improvement in efficiency occurred that same year when Pure Maid Products Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary, opened the company's first automated nitrous oxide production facility. Once in full operation, the state-of-the-art plant manufactured nearly 600 percent more gas per day than the one it replaced. In 1923, while the demand for oxygen exceeded the company's production, the demand for hydrogen fell considerably. In 1998, Puritan-Bennett Aero Systems (PBASCO[2]) was sold to BE Aerospace Inc.[5][6], In 2000, Tyco International acquired Mallinckrodt to become a Tyco Healthcare company. The Good Humor ice cream company says that confectioner Harry Burt invents ice cream on a stick, and Good Humor is granted a patent in 1923. Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. That same year, home ancestry DNA kits enter the marketplace. While adding such products as the bubble jet and a heated humidifier to its oxygen therapy line, Puritan introduced a series of new manual resuscitators and suction equipment. In 1937, the destruction of the German hydrogen dirigible, the Hindenburg, brought another opportunity for Puritan to introduce a safer gas product. To that end, the company has focused much of its attention and resources to developing and improving products for the home care segment of the industry so that it will be less vulnerable to changes affecting its life-support equipment. Having successfully rejected a hostile takeover attempt by Waltham's Thermo Electron Corporation in December 1994, one that 72 percent of Puritan-Bennett stockholders had favored, the company has taken measures to prepare itself for the changing face of the future health care market in the United States and throughout the world. This model was the most commonly used ventilators in clinical practice. One of the company's most dramatic areas of potential future growth can be found in its sleep disorder diagnosis and treatment products business. Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis develop the first flu vaccine. CE marking, signifying approval under European Union standards, follows in 1998. Moreover, while President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ordered the closing of all the country's banks, the company paid its employees in cash. Puritan brings fiber carding equipment online to more efficiently prepare cotton, rayon and polyester fibers to better address the needs of the healthcare industry. The world and the industries we serve have changed in ways people from 1919 could never have imagined. And with the introduction of the CliniVision Respiratory Care Management Information System, a central station patient monitoring system used in hospital intensive care units, as well as several improvements to the PB 7200 series, Puritan-Bennett ended the decade with $226 million in total revenue and a net income of nearly $16 million.