Sixteen years later, the company that Douglas Anderson founded is about to come to the stock market seeking a valuation of about £150m.
Optos, the Dunfermline-based firm where Anderson is still a director, has appointed Goldman Sachs to help it raise £30m. Existing investors, including Hermann Hauser’s Amadeus Capital Partners, are expected to sell a further £20m of shares.
The laser scanner that Douglas Anderson developed is selling well in America. Estimates by Goldman Sachs suggest that Optos is addressing a $2 billion (£1.1 billion) market in which it is largely unchallenged.
Despite numerous eye examinations, Leif Anderson’s retinal problems were not picked up because of the limitations of the existing equipment, and the time it took to capture an image. The Optos system, the Panoramic200, can produce a high-resolution of 80% of the retina in only a quarter of a second. Previous methods typically capture much less information from only a small part of the retina.
As well as its use in treating eye disease, the Optos scanner can detect a wide range of other conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Optos hopes to encourage the medical profession to adopt the system to provide routine check-ups.
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Optos generated revenues of $48.2m last year, a 62% increase on 2004, and broke into the black with operating profits of $2m. The firm has more than 2,000 systems in place, mostly in America, and is paid $20 for each image taken.
Amadeus and other backers, including Stagecoach’s Brian Souter and his sister, Ann Gloag, have invested an estimated £35m. Anderson’s interest, held via his Crombie Anderson consulting firm, is about 5%.