OMRON's healthcare division provides both home-use and professional medical equipment. Based on the idea that good health begins at home, OMRON's home-use products, such as blood pressure monitors and pedometers, encourage individuals to take a proactive role in managing their own health.

Cancer, heart disease and cerebral stroke are the most common causes of death in industrialized countries. Many of these deaths are largely attributable to poor lifestyle choices such as overeating, tobacco use, excess alcohol consumption, and lack of physical activity. Omron Healthcare's mission is to promote the prevention of lifestyle diseases and to help create a society in which people enjoy healthy and comfortable lives.

Omron Healthcare strives to develop products that provide accurate health information to consumers and physicians and that support positive lifestyle changes and health improvement. By enabling people to accurately monitor certain aspects of their day-to-day health at home, Omron Healthcare is making it easier for people to work with their medical professionals to prevent and measure the progression of lifestyle diseases.

In keeping with this corporate philosophy, Omron Healthcare also contributes to the sustainable development of society by strongly considering the economic, environmental, and social impact of its every action.

Omron Corporation of Kyoto, Japan was founded in 1933 and is a global leader in the design and manufacture of sensor and ultrasonic systems and technology. Omron Healthcare, a subsidiary of Omron Corporation, has become a leading marketer and distributor of medical, home healthcare, and wellness products. Omron Healthcare Business has a research and development staff of over 90 dedicated engineers and support staff located at the corporate headquarters in Kyoto.

Omron Healthcare was the first to introduce manual and digital blood pressure units to the home healthcare market. It identified digital thermometers as more accurate, safer, and more reliable than mercury units, and developed the U.S. market for these devices. Omron Healthcare also developed a body fat monitor using sensor technology, and respiratory inhalation devices using proprietary vibrating mesh technology.

In September, 2009, Omron Healthcare marked an important milestone for its blood pressure monitors: 100 million units sold worldwide.

Omron started to sell blood pressure monitors in Germany in 1982. Blood pressure measurement at home was not so much recognized even in Japan at that time. Moreover, it was quite a challenge to move forward without knowing international medical device regulations. In Germany, we brought in the products that met Japanese standard, so later we had to deal with the local regulations. We also have entered into the U.S., but we ended up selling the products by local brand names in stead of Omron's in both countries in 1980s.

However we considered it is essential to have Omron brand business for our growth, so acquired Marshall (the company we had OEM relationship) in the U.S. in 1990. Started with Marshall, Omron set about global business expansion, establishing sales offices in Germany in 1990 and in Hong Kong in 1991 to cultivate sales channels in Europe and Asia Pacific. These activities laid a foundation for our overseas expansion.

Paying close attention to the differences of needs in each country, Omron communicated its "accuracy" and "usability" of the products in technological field while improving its services and maintenances. As Omron was recognized, we earned the trust regarding our entire business including both in the technological development and services. For example, Omron's blood pressure monitor has been awarded the gold prize in seven consecutive years by "Best Pharmacy Partner" where pharmacies in Germany select innovative technologies and excellent services.

With these recognitions all around the world, Omron's blood pressure monitor sales marked over 10% annual growth, and became the top manufacturer of the world.

Omron's share of market reached 67% in Japan and 51% in global market today (forecast in FYE2009, based on a monetary amount. Source: Omron Healthcare)

Omron recently strengthened the businesses in Russia and China and secured No.1 share in blood pressure monitor in Russia in March, 2009. Furthermore, Omron expands the sales networks with 20 sales bases and 62 service centers throughout China. Additionally, Omron focuses on growing markets such as India and Mexico and actively worked on improving the brand recognition and promotion of home blood pressure monitoring.

Cultures, thoughts and life styles vary by country, which applies to the design of healthcare devices. For example, "orange" is used for the color of button for devices in Japan, and "navy" is used in Western countries because orange color can be associated with "emergency / attention" and considered not to be suitable for healthcare devices. Also, the word "fuzzy" for the fuzzy-logic based blood pressure monitor was not known outside of Japan, so we came up with the technological name; "IntelliSense to replace the word.

With these experiences, we now participate in numbers of conferences and events related to hypertension all around the world.

• Participated in European Society of Hypertension in Milan and held the symposium with the theme of "New Horizons in Blood Pressure Measurement"
• Held an event themed importance of management of blood pressure at home and exercises in diabetes cooperated with AADE (American Association of Diabetes Educators) in the U.S.
• Supports the blood pressure information web site of AHA (American Heart Association) over 10 years
• Participated in World Hypertension Day in Seoul, Korea and held the free blood pressure monitoring and the health counseling for mountain climbers
• Participated in Philippines Pharmacists Association National Convention and had a lecture titled "Mercury-Free in Medical Field".

Through those activities, Omron's blood pressure monitor was highly recognized in the global market. Omron won the 1st prize in the category of Pharmacist-recommended blood pressure monitor in "Pharmacy Today" published by American Pharmacists Association (February, 2009). 74% pharmacists, the highest rate ever, chose Omron's product. (8% for the runner-up)

Moreover, we also joined the Committee of Blood Pressure Monitor Standard as the representative of Japan from 2002 and the project of WHO (World Health Organization) and has developed the solar-powered blood pressure monitor since 2008 to promote blood pressure measurement in the areas with low medical services.