Kelly Rudolph

Taking notice of the growing respiratory therapy industry, many medical device manufacturers are expanding into this prosperous market. Dealer/Provider spoke with Kelly Rudolph, marketing manager at Hans Rudolph Inc, Kansas City, Mo, to get a glimpse of how Hans Rudolph, a medical device manufacturer, has diversified from the manufacturing of diagnostic respiratory devices into the development of respiratory therapy products.

Q How did Hans Rudolph get started, and what is the current company direction?
A My grandfather, Hans, began designing and making patient interfaces in the early 1930s and made the first breathing valve used for lung function testing. Our company incorporated in 1960 and has three Rudolphs still running it today. We have since grown and gained a reputation throughout the world as one of the leading medical device manufacturers of respiratory care and testing masks, valves, calibration devices, lung simulators, etc. The market for sleep and ventilation masks has driven us into our current focus, which is on making the highest-quality, most durable, and best-fitting full-face (oro-nasal) and nasal CPAP/bilevel and noninvasive ventilation masks.

Q What benefits and challenges do you foresee as Hans Rudolph diversifies from the diagnostic side of the respiratory market into the therapy side?
A The sleep apnea market is huge, and with masks being the most important component of patient compliance during nightly CPAP/bilevel therapy, we are in a great position since mask making is what we do best. The competitors, although very large companies, cannot compete with our quality of fit, comfort, ease of use, cleaning, and customer service, along with the fact that Hans Rudolph can react quickly to customer requests in mask designs. We are gaining market share every day one patient at a time, and it’s the only way to effectively beat the large, big-name companies that have controlled the market for so many years. Quality will always win over low price, but one of the great benefits of buying our masks is that they are priced very competitively, so we offer the dealers and distributors the chance to satisfy their customers with a CPAP mask that works and brings more profit to their bottom line.

Q What new products is Hans Rudolph introducing into the respiratory therapy market?
A We are making many new products, and two of them are sleep and vent masks, which encompass both full face—where we are very unique—and nasal. We have a new reusable, dishwasher-safe, silicone rubber, full-face CPAP mask that fits under the patient’s chin and conforms to face geometry for a leak-free comfortable fit. There are five sizes of this new Oro-Nasal 7600 Vmask, along with five more half sizes when using the Sensa Seal optional button-on seal accessory. We also have a dishwasher-safe, silicone rubber nasal mask that has a tougher market to compete in. It has a malleable nose strap that allows custom forming to nose bridges and the Comfort Seal Foam stick-on seal accessory. It is small, nonclaustrophobic, and available in three sizes, and it has been the choice of many patients and thus dealers.