Kevin Mosher sees his products eventually replacing what has become a staple for many older Americans: dentures.
Mosher is the top U.S. official for Europe’s Nobel Biocare Holding AG, a maker of dental products that employs some 300 people in Yorba Linda.
Among Nobel’s products are dental implants, which replace the root of a natural tooth, fuse to the jaw and are capped with a crown or bridge.
“I believe that in 50 years, no one will do these partial dentures,” said Mosher, Nobel’s vice president and North American general manager. “These three-unit bridges and implants will be the standard of care.”
Nobel’s implants now are used in place of a tooth that has to be replaced because of decay or disease.
Supplanting dentures,which take the place of an entire section, row or all the teeth,would be the whole shebang for Nobel and others. It would do away with an entire industry that’s grown up around dentures,no more of those Polident commercials with Florence Henderson.
“We like to say that our solutions are root-to-tooth for missing teeth,” Mosher said. “We took the concept from not just the implant, but to total tooth restorations.”
The advantages of implants are they last longer and are more like real teeth,studies show patients with implants eat better than those with dentures.
But Nobel and others have a long way to go to replace dentures.
The hurdles: implants require surgery and are costly,a full mouth of Nobel’s “teeth in an hour” costs as much as $60,000. Most insurance plans don’t cover the full cost.
The challenge for Nobel, according to Mosher, is to spread the word about implants. Fewer than 3% of people who could get them actually do, he said.
The market potential is “enormous,” Mosher said.
Some 240 million people in North America, Europe and Japan are missing one or more teeth, Mosher said, a condition known as edentulism.
Nobel is part of a group of dental products companies that have taken root in Orange County.
The group includes Newport Beach-based Sybron Dental Specialties Inc., the industry’s No. 2 after Pennsylvania’s Dentsply International Inc., as well as 3M ESPE Dental Products, an Irvine-based unit of 3M Co., and Glidewell Dental Laboratories Inc. in Newport Beach.
Nobel is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and also has some operations in Sweden, where the company originated. Nobel’s shares trade on the Swiss and Swedish stock exchanges.
In 2004, Nobel had sales of $480 million and profit of $120 million. This year, the company projects sales of $580 million and $195 million in profit.
The Yorba Linda unit made up about 40% of sales, or $54 million, in the third quarter.
The U.S. operation is growing sales at 30% or more yearly, according to Hans Bostrom, a London-based analyst for Goldman Sachs & Co.
Nobel “has superior growth” in the U.S., according to Christoph Gubler, an analyst at Geneva-based investment bank Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch.
“They have been very aggressive in terms of their marketing effort over there,” he told Reuters.
The global market for dental implants is about $1.4 billion. Nobel and Straumann Holding AG, also of Switzerland, hold half of the market, according to analysts.
Nobel and Straumann could have more competition looming. A dental industry report last year from Gabelli & Co., a Rye, N.Y.-based brokerage, said U.S. dental companies have indicated they are interested in either expanding or entering the dental implant market.
Gabelli cited Sybron and Dentsply as two prospects in dental implants. Sybron has entered the implant market through two acquisitions,Canada’s Innova Life Sciences Corp. and Oraltronics Dental Implant Technology of Germany.
Nobel has about a third of the global dental implant market, according to Mosher. By 2010, the market could more than double to $3.5 billion, he said.
The company is betting on new products and research to help Nobel hold market share, Mosher said.
Nobel’s chief executive, Heliane Canepa, “really dramatically increased our research” after taking over in 2001.
“Our research is up about five-fold since she joined our company,” Mosher said.
Nobel has some 25 workers devoted to research and development in Yorba Linda, he said. The company also does research in Sweden.
Nobel’s also looking to possible acquisitions, according to Mosher.
“The dental market is still very fragmented in terms of the players that would participate in the reconstruction of a tooth, or the full mouth,” he said. “Like any other industry, the potential is there for some consolidation.”
Mosher is a tall, soft-spoken Boston native who played hockey in his youth. His office features a signed jersey from Olympic hockey hero Jim Craig, who spoke last year at a Nobel sales conference.
Nobel sells its products directly to dentists. The Yorba Linda unit’s representatives call on dentists in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
Nobel occupies some 70,000 square feet in a pair of buildings on Savi Ranch Parkway off the Riverside (91) Freeway. Along with research and sales, Nobel does manufacturing there.
The company also has one of four training centers in Yorba Linda,part of its push to educate about implants. The company trained some 160,000 dentists worldwide last year.
Dentists who attend the center, Mosher said, learn about Nobel’s products, techniques and materials. They also can watch surgeries.
Nobel started 40 years ago. It grew out of research by P.I. Br & #228;nemark, a Swedish scientist who is considered the father of the modern dental implants.
Br & #228;nemark’s research found that bone integrates with titanium, a key material used in implants.
“Nobel was part of the founding of the modern-day implant business,” Mosher said. “And then from there, many other companies have sprung up that also manufacture implants.”
Nobel, like its Savi Ranch neighbor Viasys Respiratory Technologies, part of Pennsylvania’s Viasys Healthcare Inc., has roots in OC’s biomedical industry.
Nobel’s North American headquarters moved from Chicago to OC in 1998, after Nobel acquired a dental implant company Steri-Oss Inc. of Yorba Linda.
