Formed in 1970, Olympus KeyMed in Southend-on-Sea has grown from a staff of four to become firmly established as an international leader in the manufacture and supply of specialised medical and industrial equipment. Today, the Olympus KeyMed Group employs approaching 1,000 people at its purpose-built headquarters in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England and subsidiaries in Ireland and Plymouth, Devon.

KeyMed House, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, UK

In April 2004, Her Majesty the Queen approved the Prime Minister’s recommendation that a Queen’s Award for Enterprise be conferred upon Olympus KeyMed in the category of Sustainable Development.

This was followed by a second Queen’s Award in April 2006 in the category of International Trade, given in recognition of the company’s success in deploying the commercial excellence gained within its UK domestic business to other international markets, resulting in impressive performance improvements.

On 21 April 2008, a third Queen’s Award for Enterprise was bestowed upon Olympus KeyMed in the category of Innovation.  This was awarded in recognition of the creation of i-SPEED - a state of the art, high-speed video camera, which is achieving significant market success through its portability, flexibility and functionality.

Since 1986, Olympus KeyMed has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Olympus Corporation, Japan, and as such is an important part of the global Olympus network, with specific responsibility for the development and manufacture of medical equipment and industrial products for distribution world-wide. Olympus is recognized around the world as a manufacturer of high-quality electro-optical products, such as cameras and microscopes and endoscopic instrumentation, for both medical and industrial applications. For financial, Investor Relations, Company Profile and historical information on the Olympus Corporation please visit the Olympus Global Corporate Information site. Olympus KeyMed, as one of the global business centres for Olympus endoscopy products, is the exclusive distributor and service centre for the entire Olympus range of flexible and rigid endoscopes, accessories and ancillary products in Great Britain, with Olympus Ireland handling sales and service in Ireland. Olympus KeyMed’s distributor for medical products in Northern Ireland is Cardiac Services Ltd.  For details of Olympus KeyMed’s medical endoscopy product distributors in the Middle East & Africa, please use the ’Distributor Locator’ above.	Olympus EVIS LUCERA Endoscopy System
Olympus medical products are manufactured in Olympus’ Aizu, Shirakawa, Hinode and Aomori facilities Japan, by Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe in Hamburg, Germany, and by Olympus KeyMed in the UK. Olympus industrial products are manufactured in Nagano Olympus in Japan, Olympus NDT in the USA and by Olympus KeyMed in the UK. The company is also the exclusive UK distributor and service centre for Aloka diagnostic ultrasound systems - an area which now represents a significant part of the company’s medical business.	Endoscopic Surgery Procedure Nondestructive examination
Service and repair of all products sold is carried out in purpose-built service laboratories at the Olympus KeyMed facilities in Southend and Dublin, with installed systems being maintained by a team of strategically placed field service engineers.
Olympus KeyMed in Southend and its subsidiary, sister and parent companies have certificated quality management systems in place to assure that its products and services meet the stringent standards required globally for medical equipment manufacture, supply and repair, allowing them to CE mark their products in accordance with the European Medical Device Directive 93/42/EEC. All Olympus facilities, together with Olympus KeyMed in Southend, are also certificated to ISO 14001, the international environmental management standard.