Finding a distributor in a market you do not know usually goes one of two ways. Somebody introduces you to one, and they become the plan. Or you meet a dozen at a trade show, they all say yes, and you pick on instinct.
Both are worse than they need to be, because in most of the world the information you want is already a matter of public record.
Start from the fact that changes everything else
Across most of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, a foreign manufacturer cannot hold its own registration. It is granted to a locally domiciled entity, and that entity's name is on the certificate.
So your distributor is not just a commercial partner. They are the legal holder of your market access. Changing them can mean re-registering, and re-registering can mean months with nothing to sell. Across the markets where we can classify the relationship, roughly three registrants in four exist to hold somebody else's product rather than their own — this is the normal structure, not an edge case.
Everything below follows from that. You are not hiring a sales channel. You are choosing who holds your licence.
The method
1. List who already holds registrations in your device category. Not who exhibits at trade shows — who is actually named on certificates in your category, in that market. That list is your real candidate pool, and it is evidence rather than marketing.
2. Look at what else each one carries. This is the step that gets skipped and matters most. A distributor holding registrations for a direct competitor has a structural reason to under-push your product, and they will rarely volunteer it. The registrations tell you regardless.
3. Check breadth against depth. A holder with hundreds of registrations across many categories may be a logistics operation that will warehouse you and do little else. One with a tight portfolio in your clinical area is more likely to have the specialist relationships that actually move product. Neither is automatically right — but the shape tells you what kind of company you are talking to.
4. Check whether their registrations are still live. A candidate whose portfolio is substantially lapsed is telling you something about how they manage renewals. Since your registration will sit in that same portfolio, it is worth knowing before rather than after.
5. Look at what they win. In markets with public procurement, award records show which distributors actually sell to which institutions. A distributor who has never won in your category may still be right — but you should know you are betting on a first.
What to settle before you sign
Two clauses matter more than the commercial terms, and both are much cheaper to negotiate before signature:
- What happens to the registration if the relationship ends. Transfer mechanics vary by market and are sometimes genuinely difficult. Establish the process, in writing, while you still have leverage.
- Exclusivity tied to performance. Exclusivity granted flat is how a product ends up parked in a portfolio, legally held by someone with no obligation to sell it.
Why this is worth an afternoon
The realistic failure mode of a market entry is not a regulatory rejection. It is a granted registration sitting with a distributor who never really pushed the product, in a market where switching means starting over.
Almost every input to avoiding that is visible before you commit — who holds what, whose portfolio is live, who has actually won business. It is a strange thing to skip.