Compumedics CEO earns entrepreneur award

Compumedics CEO David Burton has received an Entrepreneur of the Year award from global accounting firm Ernst and Young.

The award -- Entrepreneur of the Year, Technology, Communications, E-commerce and Life Sciences, Southern Region Australia -- recognises Burton's business achievements in founding Compumedics, which develops and manufactures diagnostic products for sleep disorders, cardiac applications and neurophysiology.

Burton started the company after a chance visit to his local doctor in 1987, establishing it with no external investment until 1996. The company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2000, and now has sales in excess of AUD$30 million per year. With 90 per cent of sales overseas, Compumedics claims 70 per cent of the Australian sleep diagnostic market and 11 per cent of the US market. Its acquisition of US company Neuroscan last year has also provided it with the majority of the world market for brain research instruments.

Burton said in a statement that despite global events, Compumedics had achieved record sales this year. But despite the success of the company to date, he claimed that the company was only at the beginning of its growth.

"We are at the beginning of the Compumedics business story, after twenty years of predominantly technology research and development focus," he said. The company was positioned to supply growing world demand for diagnostic equipment for sufferers of sleep disorders at risk of congestive heart failure and stroke.

Winners of the awards were selected by an independent panel of judges drawn from the Victorian business community, and will go on to contest the Australian National Entrepreneur of the Year.