Beckman Begins to Expand Sales in Soviet Union

Making gains in an ongoing campaign to expand its presence in the Soviet Union, Beckman Instruments said Monday that it recently shipped a $1.5-million order of clinical-diagnostic instruments to the U.S.S.R. and is enlarging its Moscow office.

Beckman officials also gave a Soviet delegation a tour of its manufacturing plants in Brea and Fullerton last week. Included in the delegation was the No. 2 health official in the Soviet Union, Vasilij Vasilevicz Gromyko.

Arthur Torrellas, Beckman’s vice president of international operations, said that Gromyko during his visit discussed plans to upgrade health care by improving or building 150 to 200 medical diagnostic laboratories throughout the Soviet Union.

Last month, Beckman shipped to the Soviet Union 11 Synchron Clinical Systems, a newly developed and highly computerized product that is used to make routine blood tests. Torrellas said that one of the systems has already been installed in a new hospital called The Cardiac Center that is being developed on the outskirts of Moscow.

Can Open Office in Moscow

Beckman has been doing business with the Soviet Union for about 20 years. During that time, Torrellas said, most communication with the Soviets has been via a Beckman field office in Vienna, which serves the Eastern Bloc. For the last 5 years, Beckman has maintained a single desk in shared office space in Moscow. That desk relayed the Soviets’ technical questions to engineers in Vienna.

After years of lobbying by Beckman, Torrellas said, the Soviets recently approved the company’s request to open an office of its own in Moscow that will be staffed with sales and service personnel. That office is scheduled to open next month.

Torrellas said personnel stationed in Moscow will service Beckman equipment already installed in the Soviet Union and demonstrate the company’s latest products to Soviet health authorities.

In the past, Torrellas said, most of Beckman’s sales in the Soviet Union have involved bio-analytical instruments that were used primarily in university laboratories. The country’s greater emphasis on improving health care for its people, he said, now is spurring greater national interest in Beckman’s clinical diagnostic equipment.

Beckman President Lou Rosso has signed a letter of commitment with Gromyko confirming the company’s “willingness to cooperate in the support of the minister and his plans” to open new diagnostic centers and hospitals in the Soviet Union.

Also, Torrellas said, Beckman has a contract with a Soviet agency to train technicians who in turn will train other Soviets in how to use Beckman’s instruments. He said the first Soviet technicians have just completed 4 weeks of training at Beckman’s facility in Munich, Germany.