Chirana Corporation Management Building in Stará Turá, 1970.

The production of medical technology in Stará Turá began after World War II. Since 1947, injection syringes were made there, followed by surgical instruments and sterilization and inhalation units. In September- October 195 the Prema Company in Stará Turá presented its products at the First Exhibition of Czechoslovak Engineering in Brno, in October followed a medical technology exhibition in the National Museum in Prague, on which Prema Stará Turá cooperated with the Chirana factories in Prague and Brno. In 1958, the large bronchoscopy set made by Prema received the Grand Prix at the EXPO in Bruxelles and since 1959 the first extracorporeal blood circulation machine was made in Stará Turá. The manufacture of electrocardiographs (as well as anaesthetic and resuscitation equipment and later, dental units) began in 1959, after an agreement on division of medical engineering among Eastern European countries was set in 1956 and a new medical technology factory in Piešťany took over a number of Prema production lines.

The name Chirana, coined by the Brothers Čižek medical technology company in 1930, combined the Greek word for hand (chira) and an abbreviation NA for nástroje (instruments). Nationalized in 1948, the company was consolidated with a number of other firms as “Závody léčebné mechaniky“ (Medical Mechanics Works), a clumsy title abandoned in 1950 in favor of “Chirana.” In 1953, the Chirana factories in the Czech lands and the Prema in Slovakia were consolidated again under central management in Stará Turá. The corporation took up the name Chirana in 1965.