When a physician does the first case with a new device, the device is registered, the stock is in place and our team is in the room. We have been preparing that day since 2006. We started at one desk.
Istanbul, 2006. One desk, one phone and one product to sell.
Ozan Akın founded Melekırmak in 2006. Before that he was Türkiye sales manager for another company, where he had built an oncology brand in Türkiye from scratch.
The company's first address was a desk in a former employer's office. There was no capital. The nurses and physicians who knew his work from the field trusted him.
One person, one desk, one phone
Take as much as you need. Pay me when you have the money.
The gloves' distributor
The first product was gloves. Their distributor supplied them without payment up front, on Ozan Akın's word.
He bought a motorcycle in instalments and delivered to the hospitals himself.
One motorcycle, one product: gloves
Then the company that imported the gloves cut off supply.
When it did supply, the price was too high to carry.
We went to the factory.
“I found a glove factory in Italy. I went to see them and took the distributorship from them.”
Ozan Akın, founder
Supply to the hospitals no longer depended on another importer. New distributorships followed the gloves: first in the region, then across Türkiye.
Some products we specified ourselves, from what nurses and physicians told us on the ward.
For oncology units we set the model and technical features of a light-protective sleeve and had a factory in Türkiye make it. For endoscopy units we researched an H. pylori rapid urease test and had it made the same way.
The contents of the chemotherapy spill kit were set together with the nurses who handle the drug every day.
We have no factory of our own. We bring the need from the ward; a manufacturer makes the product under our brand.
We do not put our own brand against a product we distribute.
The second half of our story: the four steps a device takes with us today
A device's registration file is prepared by our own regulatory team.
The manufacturer sends its documents. Our team turns them into the files each Turkish system asks for.
Before a device reaches a Turkish hospital, its file has to clear several systems, each with its own rules:
All six steps are done by our own team. When a physician asks about one of our products, its file is sent on request.
A physician learns a new technique beside a colleague who has done the cases.
Physician to physician: we host the workshop, the live case and the congress session, and the physician who has done the cases teaches. More than 3,000 physicians have taken part in our programmes since 2006.
What happens at the first case?
Our clinical team, nurse included, is in the procedure room beside the physician, and the manufacturer's specialist joins where the procedure asks for it. The unit does not do its first case alone.
Wherever the physician works, the product and our team have to reach them.
Stock is held in Istanbul and the order ships from there or from the regional dealer; our sales team and 32 regional dealers reach public and private hospitals across Türkiye. The product is represented in the DMO catalogue and in hospital tenders, and every lot is traceable.
What started at one desk now stands beside the physician at a new device's first case.
Today we bring our manufacturers' products from abroad to physicians in Türkiye.
“I did not just build a company; I built a team. That is what makes me proud.”
Ozan Akın, founder
Your file does not depend on one person.
Our team in the field
