Beckman Coulter Inc. has put a price tag on its upcoming move to Brea.
During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Chief Executive Scott Garrett said the Fullerton-based medical testing equipment and supply company plans to spend some $50 million for what he called the “Orange County consolidation project.”
Beckman said last year that it would move a good deal of its OC operations, including its corporate office, from its 55-year-old complex on North Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton to neighboring Brea by the end of this year.
Beckman’s Brea facility, near Imperial Highway and Kraemer Boulevard, opened in 1979 and largely is devoted to its clinical instrument division, which produces medical testing machines.
Beckman expects to recoup most, if not all, of the $50 million when it sells its Fullerton campus, which it anticipates happening in 2010 or 2011, said Charles Slacik, Beckman’s chief financial officer.
The conference call also touched on Beckman’s moves in Asia.
Beckman said that its Asia-Pacific revenue was $104.5 million, flat from a year earlier.
Continued weakness in Japanese sales offset Asian revenue gains in Beckman’s equipment for substance testing and flow cytometry, a technique for examining cells with fluorescent dyes and a laser beam.
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Children’s Hospital of Orange County: trying stem cell treatment for cancer |
Beckman also saw a 15% regional decrease in life science revenue, or sales to medical and drug researchers, Garrett said.
Life science revenue has slowed throughout the world, and Japan is no exception, Garrett said.
“Japan continues to be a problematic market. I think it’s not all unique to us,” Garrett said.
In addition, he said that reimbursement and “just the outlook in clinical diagnostics in Japan is pretty flat, so we weren’t able to really grow that business much in the fourth quarter, nor did it grow a lot in the year.”
But Garrett pointed out that Beckman did better in other parts of Asia. He said that Beckman got a “great start” in South Korea, an area where it just introduced a direct sales group, and continued seeing gains in the Chinese market.
AMO Deal Gets Antitrust OK
Advanced Medical Optics Inc., a Santa Ana-based maker of eye surgical devices and contact lens solutions, is closer to being part of Abbott Laboratories.
Earlier this month, Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott received Federal Trade Commission clearance for its pending $2.8 billion buy of Advanced Medical. Abbott’s paying about 150% more for Advanced Medical than the company’s stock was trading at before the deal was announced in January.
Still, Forbes writer Lisa LaMotta argued in her article “Abbott’s Big Eyes” that Abbott actually is getting Advanced Medical at a discount. She noted that the deal price of $22 per share was 12% lower than the device maker’s 52-week high of $24.90. Advanced Medical’s No. 2 position in the cataract surgical device market and No. 3 position in contact lens care products made “it very attractive for a company like Abbott, which is trying to grow in the market for eye-care products and laser vision correction,” LaMotta wrote.
CHOC in Cancer Treatment Trial
Children’s Hospital of Orange County said its children’s cancer institute is taking part in a study on a stem cell therapy dubbed StemEx as an alternative to bone marrow transplants for treating leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers.
The study is a venture between Israeli companies Gamida-Cell Ltd. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., which are both developing
StemEx.
StemEx is designed for patients who are unable to find bone marrow donors.
The StemEx process takes stem and progenitor cell populations from patients, expands the cell populations and then transplants the cells back into the patients.
CHOC said the study is recruiting patients age 12 to 55 with either leukemia or lymphoma.
Bits and Pieces:
TriZetto Group Inc., a Newport Beach-based healthcare information technology company, named Regina Paolillo executive vice president and chief financial officer. Paolillo replaces Bob Barbieri, who left the company in May. She most recently was with General Atlantic Partners, a Greenwich, Conn.-based private equity firm, as senior vice president of its operations group B. Braun Medical Inc., a Pennsylvania device maker with a significant Irvine operation, said it received a three-year contract from Premier Purchasing Partners LP for its hemodialysis and continuous renal replacement therapy dialysis products The University of California, Irvine School of Medicine’s emergency medicine interest group recently hosted a student symposium designed to promote emergency management expertise among current and future healthcare providers.
