Person to Watch: Richard Afable
Our pick of Richard Afable was stoked by the fact that he was starting a new job this year—becoming the initial president and chief executive of Covenant Health Network in Irvine.
Covenant is a regional health delivery system anchored by the hospitals of Irvine-based St. Joseph Health and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, which has campuses in Newport Beach and Irvine.
Afable took over the reins of Covenant at the end of February after seven years at Hoag.
He told the Business Journal this summer that Covenant would be able to provide “local care” that fits the needs of larger employers with workers living throughout Orange County, citing Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co. as examples.
The network became operational in March after California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office approved the affiliation with conditions on services such as women’s healthcare and charity care.
Early controversy over services at Hoag has calmed, and Covenant has spent the year selling insurers on the new system with an eye on winning business in 2014.
―Vita Reed
Company to Watch: Allergan Inc.
We picked the Irvine-based maker of Botox and other drugs as our 2013 company to watch based on its planned emphasis on high-growth businesses.
Allergan lived up to its billing right off the bat, with a $958 million buy of Map Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its Levadex inhaled drug for migraine headaches in January.
Levadex is awaiting approval and holds the potential to complement the migraine franchise Allergan has built with Botox.
The company re-emphasized its focus on high-growth potential in October when it struck a deal to sell its weight-loss business, including Lap-Band, for $75 million and a $15 million minority equity interest to Texas-based Apollo Endosurgery Inc.
The drug maker shed a product line that drew plenty of controversy, held the potential for legal entanglements—and had become a slow grower.
Chief Executive David Pyott told the Business Journal in late October that “anything that doesn’t grow substantially does not belong in the Allergan portfolio.”
“Prerecession, I think we hadn’t fully realized how much of [Lap-Band] was cash-pay versus pay with insurance—and that market has virtually gone away,” Pyott said. “The overall market, sadly, given the demand … for surgical obesity intervention, is scarcely growing.”
