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Device Maker Plays Key Eye Surgery Role

WaveTec Vision Systems Inc., an Aliso Viejo medical device maker, has a product that could draw the interest of the industry’s big names.

The company’s lead product, ORange, is used in surgeries to replace cataracts with intraocular lenses made by big device companies including Santa Ana’s Abbott Medical Optics Inc., Switzerland’s Alcon Inc., which has operations in Irvine, and New York’s Bausch & Lomb Inc., with operations in Aliso Viejo.

“We don’t compete with Abbott Medical, Bausch & Lomb or Alcon,” said Tom Frinzi, WaveTec’s chief executive. “Quite frankly, they are potentially strategic acquirers of this technology—it’s very complementary to their cataract portfolio.”

ORange works by analyzing a wavefront—a line or “wave” that gives a 3-D view of the eye’s surface and can be mounted directly on a surgical microscope.

“It gives you that ability to have a good quality check intraoperatively,” said Frinzi, who joined WaveTec in August.

Frinzi: “There will be liquidity options out there”

WaveTec started selling ORange 18 months ago in the U.S. The device also has European regulatory approval. The company plans to start selling it in Europe in late 2011 or early 2012.

Frinzi declined to say how much yearly revenue WaveTec generates.

“We continue to meet our expectations in terms of our revenue growth,” he said.

The company has venture capital backing. It’s raised $38 million, including a $20 million round of funding in 2009 that included Versant Venture Management LLC, which has an office in Newport Beach, Atlanta’s Accuitive Medical Ventures LLC and De Novo Ventures of Menlo Park.

That followed a $13 million round in 2007 that also included Versant, Accuitive and De Novo.

WaveTec started in 1997 and existed on angel funding until 2005. That was when Versant made an initial $5.25 million investment in the company after learning that wavefront analysis technology could be used in eye surgeries.

“The distinctive element of the WaveTec opportunity, in our opinion, is the clinical impact that we believe it can have,” said Charles Warden, a Newport Beach-based Versant managing director, in an earlier interview.

Potential Acquisition

While WaveTec could be a potential acquisition, “we have to stay focused on doing what we can control,” Frinzi said.

“To the degree that we continue to grow the business, there will be liquidity options out there,” he said.

That could include an acquisition or a possible initial public offering, according to Frinzi.

“Being venture-backed, you want to work towards a liquidity event, but you can’t focus on that,” he said. “You have to focus on running the business and continuing to grow it.”

WaveTec has 45 workers with plans to hire more in 2011, including more salespeople.

The company sells directly to doctors and provides support.

In 2007, Abbott Medical Optics, part of the Chicago area’s Abbott Laboratories, paid $20 million for a wavefront device maker, WaveFront Sciences Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M.

Abbott Medical’s device and others from Alcon and Bausch & Lomb are geared toward laser vision correction surgery, according to Frinzi.

“We’ve taken that concept and applied that to cataract surgery,” he said.

Frinzi Background

Frinzi has spent 30 years in the medical device industry.

Before WaveTec, he was vice president of global commercial operations for Bausch & Lomb Surgical in Aliso Viejo.

And he’s a former chief executive of Refractec Inc., an Irvine developer of devices to correct vision problems.

His background also includes roles at Chiron Vision Corp., which was sold to Bausch in 1997, and Iolab Inc., a former eye unit of Johnson & Johnson.

Frinzi’s predecessor, Tom Berryman, left WaveTec to pursue other ventures. Berryman’s background includes starting Genyx Inc., another Aliso Viejo device maker that was sold to C.R. Bard Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J., in 2005.

Berryman also was chief financial officer of VLI Corp., an Irvine company that developed the Today Sponge contraceptive in the 1980s.

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