Thank you all for joining us today. My name is Rusher Pope. I'm a member of the Healthcare Investment Banking team here at JPMorgan. It's my pleasure to introduce our next speaker, Liam Kelly, the President and CEO of Teleflex.
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me this morning. My name is Liam Kelly, and effective 01/01/2018, I am the new President and Chief Executive Officer of Teleflex. I've been with Teleflex since 02/2009, and most recently, I held the position of President and Chief Operating Officer. Teleflex management truly enjoys attending this conference, and we appreciate your interest in learning more about our company.
In the interest of time, my prepared remarks today will be more of a general overview of our company. However, we should have time to get into more specifics during a separate Q and A session that will immediately follow my prepared remarks. Before I begin, I want to make you aware that during this presentation, I'll be referencing forward looking statements and information. The full advisory concerning these statements is located in this slide for your reference. 2018 will mark Teleflex's seventy fifth year in existence.
Founded in 1943 as a manufacturer of precision controls for military aircraft, We've expanded and evolved through entries into new businesses, development of new products, introduction of products into new geographic or end markets and acquisitions and dispositions of businesses. Throughout our history, we have continually focused on providing innovative, technology driven, specialty engineered products that help our customers. Beginning in 02/2007, we began a process that significantly changed the composition of our portfolio of businesses. And over time, the trajectory of these decisions led us to the conclusion that it would be best to shed all of our nonmedical device assets, and this was concluded by 2011. Given the relatively rapid nature of our transformation, the Board of Directors felt that it was essential to have a management team that was well experienced in the medical device industry and as such, a new management team was put in place early in 2011.
I think that I can speak for the entire management team in saying that we joined the company enthusiastically because we all thought that it was well positioned to take advantage of some latent opportunities in its cost structure and that we would be able to develop a strong product portfolio that would be ideal in the future health care economy. Today, Teleflex is a global provider of medical technology and our focus is on products that improve clinical outcomes, reduce procedural costs and improve patient and provider safety. We employ approximately 12,600 people worldwide and have market leading positions with well recognized global brands. And as of 10/01/2017, our last twelve months revenue totaled $2,065,000,000 Most of our products are sold to hospitals or health care providers, while some of our products are used in an at home setting. Finally, some of our technologies enable us to provide specialized products to other medical device manufacturers.
One of the things appealing about Teleflex is that we are well diversified both from a geographic and clinical use perspective. And as a result, we are not dependent on any one product, procedure or market. That fact has allowed us to deliver consistent results even when some of those markets, products or procedures have experienced volatility. Now let's move on to a description of our segments. I would like to point out that in North America, our segments are driven by call point and clinical practice.
While outside of North America, our segments are organized around regions and countries. Our largest North American segment is Vascular Access, which generated approximately $374,000,000 of revenue during the last twelve months ending October 1. These products are used to administer intravenous medications or other therapies directly into the blood system where the use of these standard IV would be inadequate. There are two principal kinds of catheter that are used in this application. One is a central venous catheter, which you see pictured here.
In recent years, we have been providing a variety of kit configurations, which helps reduce injuries to the healthcare provider and expedite the placement of these catheters. However, our primary focus has been to improve the performance of our catheters through specialty coatings that reduce the likelihood of infection and thrombus. We have the only central venous catheters that has an antimicrobial claim and recently published studies demonstrate a considerable reduction in infections when our catheter is used versus an uncoated catheter. Reducing infections and eliminating the costs associated with those infections has become an increasingly important goal of health care providers. So not surprisingly, we have a global leading market share in this product category.
A Peripherally Inserted Catheter or a PIC is another device which can be used. And while we are not the market leader in this category, we have introduced highly accurate tip placement systems and catheter with antimicrobial and antithrombogenic coatings that are starting to show promising growth trends. We believe that minimizing infections and improving tip navigation and targeting will be increasingly important in the future, and we continue to invest in this area. A third way to introduce a high volume fluid into a patient's blood system is by drilling a small hole directly into the bone. Surprisingly, this is not as painful as it sounds, but most of those patients are unconscious in any event.
Patients in need of immediate high volume fluids usually have a loss of blood pressure, which makes a needle stick into a vein extremely difficult. By drilling a small hole into the bone, it acts as a very large vein and the fluid is very quickly absorbed into the bloodstream through the marrow. This is an excellent clinical alternative in emergency situations, whether it's in an ambulance, in the emergency room or on a crash cart in the intensive care unit. Turning next to our anesthesia business. We have two principal product areas in anesthesia.
One is area management and the other is pain management. Our revenue during the last twelve months of this segment was approximately $2.00 $3,000,000 The most frequent use of airway products is for patients who receive general anesthesia. During a procedure in which general anesthesia is used, the airway needs to be protected in case of regurgitation or reflux. Historically, an endotracheal tube has been used, but a more recent innovation is a laryngeal mask, which is pictured on this slide. Rather than penetrating the airway and cause potential damage to the vocal cords as an ET tube does, the laryngeal mask covers over the airway opening and eliminates certain complications associated with an ET tube.
Because of those advantages, the global use of laryngeal masks spread quickly as an alternative to ET tubes, particularly in shorter procedures. Teleflex has a leading market share in the laryngeal mask segment. And during 2017, we've introduced new products that we believe will increase our market share even further. The product you see pictured here is an example. It is a next generation device called Gastro.
The LMA Gastro with CuffPilot technology from Teleflex is the only laryngeal mask specifically designed to give clinicians control of their patient's airway while facilitating direct endoscopic access by the integrated endoscope channel. With the airway in place, clinicians can monitor end tidal CO2 for patient safety. This product is indicated for airway management in adult patients undergoing endoscopic procedures and it is something that we are quite excited about in Teleflex. In addition to manufacturing and selling laryngeal masks, Teleflex is also a leading supplier of laryngoscopes. Laryngoscopes are devices that are used to place ET tubes.
This market is rapidly moving towards completely disposable devices and Teleflex has an excellent product offering. We've acquired our supplier of the product in Israel and this should help to improve our margins and increase the speed of new product development. Finally, the other portion of our anesthesia business concentrates on pain management. And one product to focus on is the MAD nasal. Certain pain medications, for example, can be much more quickly delivered into the blood system when atomized and absorbed by the highly vascular nasal passages.
This is much less invasive than an IV and much quicker acting than intramuscular injections, and therefore, eliminates many of the problems associated with traditional needle injections. Moving on to our Surgical business. It is the third largest segment in North America, and its revenue was approximately $180,000,000 during the last twelve months. Our Surgical products include ligation closure products, specialty sutures, access ports, reusable handheld instruments and fluid management products. One of the unique innovations driving our surgical franchise is our Hemaloc product, which is pictured here.
The HemoLock has a locking system so that the surgeon can feel when the clip has been properly closed. This offers considerable advantages in laparoscopic procedures, which may have limited visibility. This product is an excellent example of the fact that hospitals will pay more for products that have an obvious clinical benefit. A relatively new area of focus for our company is microlaparoscopic products. Products.
Almost since the beginning of laparoscopic surgery, there has been an effort to make the procedure even less invasive. The focus has been on the elimination and the need of additional ports. But unfortunately, these efforts have been unsuccessful because they were either too complicated to learn or have their own set of complications. Our Percutaneous product line solves these problems and was the result of multiple acquisitions. One of these acquisitions was for the basic Perkivance technology, while two were related to patents and a fourth acquisition was the Mini Lap product line, which rounded out our portfolio.
Both sets of instruments can be introduced into the body cavity without the need for a port. It is our belief that these two product offerings will allow the company to take advantage of the growing micro laparoscopic surgical market and accelerate revenue growth and improve the margin profile of our company. Outside of North America, we manage our business by geography. Our two largest regions are Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. Our EMEA region contributes approximately 26% of our last twelve months revenue, while our APAC region contributes approximately 13% of our revenue.
In nearly every major country, we have our own country management and direct sales force that creates demand at the end user level. However, in several emerging markets, we still utilize distributors and therefore have an opportunity to further improve our revenues and margins by converting to a direct sales model and delayering our distribution network. We continue the process of converting our distributor network to a direct sales model during 2017 when we took our Vascular Access and Cardiac product lines direct within China. And during 2018, we will be taking the legacy Vascular Solutions product lines direct as well. That takes me to our OEM business, which is where Teleflex began in the medical device industry approximately thirty years ago.
Sales in our OEM segment totaled approximately 182,000,000 during the last twelve months. Within this business, we have several technologies such as custom engineered extrusions, specialty sutures, performance fibers and bioabsorbable resins that are quite useful in clinical markets in which we don't sell products ourselves. By designing and manufacturing products for other manufacturers who do have a significant presence in these markets, it allows us to participate in segments we couldn't effectively compete in our own, such as interventional cardiology and orthopedics. Finally, our remaining businesses are reported under a segment we refer to as All Other. This segment includes the interventional products that came to Teleflex through the acquisition of Vascular Solutions, cardiac intra aortic balloons and pumps, respiratory therapy products and our Latin American business.
Now that I've provided you with an overview of our markets and business segments, I would like to share with you a bit more regarding our strategy. Our strategy is built around three principal components. And for those of you who may not be more familiar with Teleflex, you will notice that these are the same three components that existed during our previous CEO, Benson Smith. I mentioned this because I've been asked quite often over the last few months, is Teleflex's strategy will change with me as CEO? The short answer to that question is no, it will not.
As our previous strategy has helped create tremendous company and has driven significant shareholder value creation. The first component of our strategy is focused around our perspective as to what the medical device market will look like in the coming years, and this strongly shapes our R and D and acquisition effort. As we think about the healthcare market, it is and will continue to be driven by two connected but often conflicting trends. The first of which centers around increased utilization. This trend is driven by an aging population in the traditional industrialized countries and a growing middle class in developing countries.
Beginning in 2011, the first baby boomers began crossing that 65 year old age line. Just in The United States, it's happening at the rate of approximately 10,000 people per day. Now we're not suggesting that people go into the hospital the day they turn 65, but as you get into the early 70s, the frequency of health care interventions increases dramatically. In addition to the aging demographics, there is an expanding middle class in select developing markets, and these people are demanding better health care. This is true for areas like China as well as the rest of Asia and South America.
Because of these trends, we are we can expect extremely favorable demographics and utilization over the next ten to fifteen years. However, the other related and conflicting trend is that of increasing cost and the question of how to pay for this level of health care. We expect that economic pressure is likely to result in changes in how care is delivered and what care is delivered. The second part of our strategy surrounds capitalizing on Teleflex's current strengths to succeed in future health care environment. Particularly advantageous to us is our scope and our size.
First, our scope. And what I mean by that are the areas of health care we are zeroing in on. As we consider the future, we believe that improved diagnostic capability, changes in reimbursement and other technology developments will have a very different impact on current procedures. Teleflex operates in multiple clinical areas that generally involve acute interventions, which cannot be easily postponed without severe consequences for the patient, and we really like that space. What we have observed over the past twenty five years is during tough economic conditions, procedures that can be postponed will be postponed.
For Teleflex, that means we will need to continue to build our franchises that are most likely to benefit from increased utilization and least likely to be negatively affected by economic pressures. Another advantage is our size. We are large enough to be a global company and have a substantial presence with customers. However, we are small enough to benefit from investments or acquisitions like our recently completed acquisitions of Vascular Solutions and Neotract, which would not move the needle for much larger competitors. And finally, our third strategic initiative includes opportunities that are somewhat unique to Teleflex.
Many of these opportunities like footprint consolidation and the delayering of our distributor channel could enable us to continue to expand the margin profile of the company for several years into the future. And lastly, during the last few years, Teleflex has been quite acquisitive. We focused our M and A efforts on a variety of different types of acquisitions, including the acquisition of distributors such as Mayo Healthcare and Stenning. We've also acquired several late stage technologies like Gnostics, wherein we purchased a technology focused on catheter tip placement and Atsina, in which we acquired a next generation surgical ligation clip technology. And we've also completed several scale acquisitions within verticals that we already have an operating presence.
Those include LMA in 2012, VitaCare in 2013 and more recently Vascular Solutions and NeoTract in 2017. We continue to be enthusiastic about all our acquisitions, but particularly the recent acquisitions of Vascular Solutions and Neotracked. And it is our belief that they will meaningfully accelerate our constant currency revenue growth rates and help expand the margin profile of the company for several years to come. That takes me to the end of my prepared remarks. By way of conclusion, I will summarize Teleflex's key investment highlights.
First, we are a diversified global medical technology company and we are not dependent on a single product or single market. This diversification helps to mitigate the risks of a changing macro environment. Second, we are currently well positioned to succeed in the marketplace. This is due both to the non postponable nature of many of our products as well as the continued opportunity for non revenue dependent margin expansion. Next, we have leading market positions with well established global brands and are committed to continuous improvement in our portfolio.
We have a diversified customer and supplier base. We generate strong free cash flow and have a proven history of deleveraging and margin expansion. And we have an experienced management team that has executed a broad array of activities from manufacturing reorganization to product development to acquisitions, all of which have led to significant shareholder value creation over the past decade. And finally, before I complete my presentation, I would like to briefly address the topic of tax reform. Recently, there have been a lot of focus on tax reform and what impact it would have on our adjusted tax rate moving forward.
Based on our current analysis, we believe tax reform will have an approximately neutral impact on our adjusted tax rate in 2018 as compared to our expected 2018 adjusted tax rate prior to tax reform. This is a better result than previously expected, principally because of changes contained in the final bill. Beyond that, we will wait until our fourth quarter earnings conference call to provide more specifics as to what to expect our 2018 adjusted tax rate to be. Thank you for your time and attention today. That completes my prepared remarks.
I will now turn the presentation back to the moderator so that we can begin our separate Q and A session. Thank you very