NVision Eye Centers has hired Dr. Jeff Machat to help grow the eye care and cataract surgery chain.
The Aliso Viejo-based company does laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, or LASIK, surgeries at 24 centers in California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon.
LASIK reshapes the surface of the cornea to improve vision as an alternative to eyeglasses or contact lenses.
Machat’s work will include duties in Murietta, Calif. and at two Bay Area facilities—a new market for NVision.
NVision President James Pereyra said the company decided to expand there when it noticed clusters of customers from San Francisco scheduling surgeries at clinics in other parts of the state.
“Patients were flying down here from there,” Pereyra said. “The same thing happened in Las Vegas two years ago,” leading NVision to open clinics in that city.
He said NVision considers “most of the western states” for growth and sees “interesting” options in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Washington.
He co-founded TLC Eye Centers in Chesterfield, Mo., whose parent runs 56 LASIK centers in 29 states and Canada, including a location in Laguna Hills, and was medical director of Optical Express in Glasgow, Scotland, which has about 90 LASIK centers in the U.K. He most recently started Crystal Clear Vision Canada Inc., a Toronto LASIK facility.
He’s done more than 60,000 laser vision correction procedures, including on optometrists and ophthalmologists who provide the procedure, and has “helped train thousands of doctors,” according to an NVision press release.
Machat in the release praised NVision’s “best and brightest surgeons” and “optometric (practice) co-management.”
Oximeter to Market
Rancho Santa Margarita-based True Wearables Inc. said it would begin shipping its Oxxiom wireless, disposable pulse oximeter by midyear.
Company founder Marcelo Lamego worked on “hemoglobin-related devices” at Masimo Corp. in Irvine, was chief technology officer at Masimo spinoff Cercacor Laboratories Inc., and worked on the Apple Watch in Cupertino for part of 2014 before founding True Wearables.
He said he’s put about $1 million into the startup to develop the product.
“We’re manufacturing in Orange County and … automating so we can hire more people here,” he said.
He said the Oxxiom measures arterial oxygen saturation, pulse rate, and perfusion index without wires. It weighs an eighth of an ounce and has a 33-foot range. Pulse oximeters are used in procedures requiring sedation and in sleep monitoring studies and research for disorders such as sleep apnea, he said.
The wireless aspect allows wearers to move around or sleep in any position, and its disposability is aimed at cutting contamination risks and the need for sterilizing the product, True Wearables said.
Lamego said he’s seeking regulatory approvals for Oxxiom.
“You can sell without approval, but you can’t make health claims—you can only describe it,” he said.
“For this type of product, you engage with doctors, convince them it’s a good technology, and they start buying the device.”
Endologix Gets Japan Nod
Irvine-based Endologix Inc., which makes products to treat aortic disorders, got the “shonin,” or approval, of Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to market its AFX(R) Endovascular AAA System there.
It anticipates 2018 shonin for its Nellix EndoVascular Aneurysm Sealing System.
Endologix President Bob Mitchell in a press release cited “positive adoption of our first generation” products and added that, “we believe the next-generation features of AFX will further strengthen adoption.”
The AFX is designed to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms—hence the AAA in its name—via stent grafts.
It signed Japan Lifeline to begin distribution of the newly approved AFX this spring and to help with its regulatory submissions for the Nellix system and distribute it after approval.
Bits and Pieces
Allegro Ophthalmics LLC in San Juan Capistrano, a biotechnology company working on vitreoretinal disease treatments, said it completed enrollment for its DEL MAR Phase 2b trial of its Luminate product, which is intended for patients with diabetic macular edema. It plans to report top-line data by the third quarter. … St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton nabbed “magnet recognition,” an excellence in nursing designation shared by about 8% of U.S. hospitals, the facility said. … Mass Spec Lab opened in Irvine to provide mass spectrometry testing and analysis to biomedical device, pharmaceutical, and fine chemicals companies. … Syneron Medical Ltd., which is based in Israel and has offices in Irvine, said a nonsurgical skin treatment it offers got a nod from a plastic surgery practice trade magazine as one of the four “biggest aesthetic breakthroughs” of 2015.
