Well, good morning, everyone. Apparently, I'm the man who needs no introduction and guess none. My name is Benson Smith. I'm the CEO of Teleflex. And good morning and thank you for joining me today.
We appreciate your interest in Teleflex, and my goal today is to assist you to understand more about the company. The presentation itself will be a general overview of Teleflex, but we'll have lots of time for your specific questions in the Q and A that will begin immediately after this. And Jake, that room is in the Yorkshire Room. Thank you. So before I begin, I want to make you aware that during the course of this presentation, I'll be referencing forward looking statements and information.
The full advisory concerning these statements is located on the slide for your reference. A little about our company. Teleflex is a more than seventy year old company which got its start making specialized cable systems during World War II. As it turns out, a lot of those cabling systems were also appropriate for ships and that brought us into the marine business. Historically, Teleflex has always been a good acquirer of companies with high quality products and good technical resources regardless of the industry.
And over time, we acquired assets in the automotive areas, commercial fields and a few medical device companies along the way. When I joined the Board in 02/2005, about 50% of our revenue was in the automotive space. And at that time, the future did not look particularly bright for automotive parts suppliers. And recognizing that, this led to the divestiture of our automotive business and the acquisition of Arrow International, a $500,000,000 medical device company, which was Teleflex's largest acquisition ever. Over the time, the trajectory of these portfolio transformation decisions led us to the conclusion that it would be best to shed all of our nonmedical device assets, which was concluded by 2011.
Given the relatively rapid nature of our transformation, the Board of Directors felt 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 brought into Intelliflex and I stepped down from the Board of Directors to become the Chief Operating Chief Executive Officer, I should get that straight. This new management team felt that the company was well positioned to take advantage of some latent opportunities in our cost structures and we'll be able to develop a strong product portfolio that would be ideal in the future healthcare 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 both patient and provider safety. We employ approximately 12,000 people worldwide and have market leading positions with well recognized global brands. Over the last twelve months ending September 2016, revenue totaled approximately $1,840,000,000 The vast majority of our products are sold to hospitals or health care providers.
Some of our products are also used in an at home setting, and some of our technologies enable us to provide specialized products to other medical device manufacturers. One of the things that I like and still like 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 significant volatility. Now as we move on to the description of our segments, I want to point out that in North America, our segments are driven by call points in clinical practice, while outside of North America, our segments are organized by regions and countries.
Our largest North American segment is Vascular Access, which generated approximately $345,000,000 of revenue over the last twelve months, again ending September 2016. These products are used to administer intravenous medications or other therapies directly into the blood system where the use of standard IV would be inadequate. There are two principal kinds of catheters that are used in this application. One is the central venous catheter, which you see pictured here. In recent years, we've been providing a variety of kit configurations to this product category, which helps reduce injuries to health care provider and expedite the placement of these catheters.
However, our main focus has been to improve the performance of our catheters through specialty coatings that reduce the likelihood for infection and thrombus. We have the only central venous catheters that have an antimicrobial claim and recently published studies demonstrate a considerable reduction in infections when our catheters are used in various situations versus an uncoated catheter. Reducing infections and eliminating the costs associated with these infections have become an increasingly important goal of healthcare providers. So not surprisingly, we have the global leading market share in this product category. A peripherally inserted catheter or PIC is another device that can be used.
And while we are not the market leader in this category, we have introduced highly accurate tip placement systems and catheters also 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 high volume fluids into a patient's blood system is by drilling a small hole directly into the bone. And surprisingly, this is not as painful as it sounds. But most patients actually are unconscious while this is being done.
Patients in need of immediate high volume fluids usually have a loss of blood pressure, which makes a needle stick into the vein extremely difficult. By drilling a small hole into the bone, the bone actually 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 in the hospital, or on a crash cart in the ICU. Turning next to our anesthesia business. We have two principal product areas in anesthesia.
One is airway management and the other is pain management. Our revenue over the last twelve months ending in September 2016 for this segment was approximately $195,000,000 The most frequent use of airway products is for patients who receive general anesthesia. During general anesthesia, the airway needs to be protected in cases of regurgitation or reflux. Historically, an ET tube has been used, but a more recent innovation is a laryngeal mask, which is pictured on the slide. Rather than penetrate into the airway and cause potential damage to the vocal cords as an ET tube does, laryngeal mask covers over the airway opening and eliminates certain complications associated with the ET tube.
As a result of those advantages, the global use of laryngeal masks spread quickly as an alternative to ET tubes, particularly in shorter procedures. Telflex has a leading market share in the laryngeal mask segment. And during the course of 2015 and 2016, we've introduced and will be introducing new products that we believe will increase our market share even further. The product you see pictured here is an example. It's our third generation device, which is designed for much longer intubations.
We believe this will convert many ET tube users to our laryngeal masks. However, there will still be situations, clinical situations where an ET tube is the best alternative. 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 recently acquired our supplier of the product in Israel and this should help us improve our margins and increase the speed of new product development.
Specifically relating to ET tubes, we believe that some of the coating technology we have may be extremely useful in limiting the buildup of mucosal secretions in long term intubated patients. Finally, one of the promise areas of our anesthesia business unit is a product called Med Nasal. Certain medications, pain medications, for example, can be much more quickly delivered in 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. We have some regulatory hurdles to overcome in The U.
S, but the product is already developed and being used more and more extensively in third world countries as it 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 $167,000,000 during the last twelve months, ending again in September 2016. Our surgical products include ligation closure products, specialty sutures, access ports, reusable handheld instruments, and a fluid management device. One of the unique innovations driving this franchise is our HemoLock product, which is pictured here.
While more expensive than a standard metal clip, HemoLock has a locking system 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 the company is microlacroscopic products. Almost since the beginning of laparoscopic surgery, there's been an effort to make the procedure even less invasive.
The focus has been on eliminating the need for additional ports, but unfortunately, those efforts were unsuccessful because they were either too complicated to learn or had their own set of complications. Our Percuvance product line solves these problems and was the end result of three separate acquisitions, one of which was the basic technology and the other two were related to patents. A fourth acquisition of the MiniLab product line rounds 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 microlaparoscopic surgical market and accelerate revenue growth and improve the margin profile of the company.
Outside of North America, we manage our business by geography. Our largest region is EMEA, which consists of Europe, Middle East and Africa, and our second largest region is Asia. Our EMEA region contributed approximately 28 of our last twelve months ending of September 2016, while our APAC region contributed approximately 13% of our revenue. In nearly every major country, we have our own country management and direct sales force that creates demand for end user level. However, in a number of emerging markets, we still utilize distributors and therefore have an opportunity to further improve our revenues and margins by converting a direct to a direct sales model and delayering our distribution network.
That takes me to our OEM business, which is where Teleflex began in the medical device industry close to thirty years ago. Sales in our OEM segment totaled approximately $154,000,000 on an LTM basis. With this business, we have a number of technologies such as custom engineered extrusions, specialty sutures, performance fibers and bioabsorbable resins that are quite useful in clinical markets where we don't sell products ourselves. By designing and manufacturing products for other manufacturers who do have a significant presence in those markets, it allows us to participate in product areas we couldn't effectively compete on 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 intra aortic balloons, pumps, respiratory therapy products and our Latin American business. Moving on to our strategy. Our strategy is really built around three principal components. The first is our perspective as to what the medical device market will look like in the coming years. This view strongly shapes our R and D and acquisition efforts.
And as we think about the health care 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 over that 65 year old age line. Just in The United States, it's happening at the result of about 10,000 people per day.
Now we're not suggesting the people go into the hospital the day they turn 65. But as they get into their early 70s, the frequency of healthcare intervention increases dramatically and continues to increase throughout their late 70s and early 80s. In addition to the aging demographics, there is an expanding middle class in select developing markets, and these people are also demanding better health care. This is true for areas like China as well as the rest of Asia and South America. As a result of these trends, we can expect extremely favorable demographics and utilization over the next ten to fifteen years.
But the other related and conflicting trend is that the increase in cost and 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 this future health care environment. Particularly advantageous is our scope and our size. First, our scope.
And by that I mean, what areas of healthcare we are zeroing in on. And as we look into the future, we believe that improved diagnostic capability, changes in reimbursement and other technology developments will have very different impacts on current procedures. We're in multiple clinical areas that generally involve acute intervention, which cannot easily be postponed to ration without severe consequences for the patient, and we like that space. What we have observed over the past twenty years is that during tough economic conditions, procedures that can be postponed will be postponed. For Teleflex, that means we 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're large enough to be a global company and have substantial presence with customers, but we're small enough to benefit from investments or acquisitions that would not move the revenue needle much for much larger competitors. And finally, our third strategic initiative involves opportunities that are somewhat unique to Teleflex. A number of such 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. That takes me to the end of my prepared remarks.
By way of conclusion, I will summarize Teleflex's key investment highlights. First, we're a diversified global medical technology company, and we are not dependent on a single product or a single market. This diversification helps to mitigate the risks of changes in a macro environment. Second, we are currently well positioned to succeed in the marketplace. This is due to the non postponable nature of many of our products as well as the continued opportunity for 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. We have many opportunities to improve our gross and operating margins in the several years to come. And finally, we have an experienced management team that has executed a broad array of activities from manufacturing reorganization product development to acquisitions, all of which has led to significant shareholder value creation over the past five years.
That brings me to the end of my prepared remarks, and we look forward to seeing those of you who are interested in our Q and A period.