Coloplast

Manufacturers

Coloplast® is a Danish company that was founded in 1957 by Aage Louis-Hansen, a civil engineer and plastics manufacturer, who developed an idea by Elise Sorensen, a nurse, into the world’s first ostomy bag. Their mission is to make life easier for people with intimate healthcare needs, specifically by listening to them and their nurses. Coloplast® values closeness to all customers (end users and healthcare professionals), passion to make a difference, and respect and responsibility. Coloplast® is a publicly traded company on the Danish Stock Exchange, and was listed as the 22nd most innovative company in the world by Forbes Magazine in 2016.

Coloplast® has been selling catheters in the United States since 1990, which is when it received FDA clearance for its Conveen® intermittent catheters. It doesn’t look like Coloplast® continues to make Conveen® intermittent catheters today, instead using that brand name for its line of external catheters. It acquired the urology division of Mentor Corp in 2006, which led to the sale of Self-Cath® branded catheters under the Coloplast name.

Interestingly enough, Coloplast®’s Self-Cath® is billed by the company as the world’s first disposable intermittent catheter, and they haven’t stopped innovating since. Coloplast® is undeniably one of the market leaders in innovative single-use catheter technologies. Their flagship Speedicath® product line features discreet and portable designs that often feature telescoping functionality.  

Similar to a few other catheter manufacturers, Coloplast® acquired the distributor Comfort Medical in 2016, which sells catheters and ostomy supplies directly to consumers. There’s very limited information about the acquisition on the Comfort Medical website. Though it’s difficult to see their full range of products online, they do list Coloplast as one of their top three brands. It’s probably a well-deserved ranking, but more transparency would be appreciated here.

Coloplast® also maintains a user engagement program called Coloplast® Care. To enroll, you supply your email address and give the company details about you – date of birth, incontinence issues, and some basic lifestyle questions. In return, they’ll send you a somewhat steady stream of emails with content that may be relevant to you. The website itself contains even more resources and articles that you can access at your leisure.

Coloplast® has also developed an app called WheelMate™. It is a crowd-sourced map that showcases the location of the nearest wheelchair-friendly toilets and parking spaces. It’s been reviewed 6 times on the Apple App Store with an average rating of 4.5 starts, and 141 times on the Google Play Store with an average rating of 3 stars (though some of the lower reviews seem to pinpoint problems with the phone itself (like inaccurate GPS location) or miss the fact that the map is crowd-sourced and therefore not always completely up to date). It’s neat idea that shows that Coloplast is considering the needs of its users outside of the products that it sells!

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