Orange County’s medical device industry could produce another $1 billion deal, as our Vita Reed reports on page 1, and the buzz among analysts points to the possibility of a familiar face being in the mix. Speculation centers on a sale of ICU Medical Inc. in San Clemente, with Hospira a popular parlor-game candidate as a likely suitor. The Lake Forest, Ill.-based company is headed by Michael Ball, who spent 16 years at Allergan, finishing with a stint as president under David Pyott, before taking the CEO’s job at Hospira in 2011 …
Heart device maker Edwards Lifesciences lost its long-held darling status with Wall Street a few weeks back, when its first-quarter results sparked concerns that sales of its less-invasive Edwards Sapien valve could lag initial expectations. Its shares dropped by about 25% on a single day last month, shedding more than $2 billion in market value. They stayed down until last week, when the company announced a $750 million stock buyback plan (see item, page 6) and got some extra juice on Wall Street when CEO Mike Mussallem said he’d spend $5 million of his own money on shares. That sent shares up 6% before falling back toward week’s end …
OC’s position as a center of eye devices and research is multifaceted and now has Jennifer Simpson, clinical professor of ophthalmology at UC Irvine, leading the development of a new potential treatment to save the eyesight of patients with cystinosis. The disease causes early cell death in major organs and muscles, and it affects about 500 people in the U.S. and 2,000 globally, mostly children. The research is being carried out at UCI’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, where it will be helped along by the Irvine-based Cystinosis Research Foundation, which raised $2.2 million for the research at the recent 11th anniversary of Natalie’s Wish—named for Natalie Stack, daughter of Sares-Regis Managing Director and CRF founder Geoffrey Stack and his wife, Nancy. Natalie has cystinosis and wished that it would “go away forever,” giving the foundation a calling card for its efforts … A mouthful of high-profile names in the newly formed trial and litigation firm Keller Rackauckas Umberg Zipser LLP in Irvine, which will go by KRUZ. Attorneys Jennifer Keller and Kay Rackauckas have left their namesake firm in Irvine and joined with Tom Umberg and Dean Zipser from the Costa Mesa office of Los Angeles-based Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP. Keller was behind the $88.4 million victory for MGA Entertainment Inc., maker of Bratz dolls, in a case in 2011 that concluded Mattel Inc., maker of Barbie dolls, misappropriated trade secrets in connection to MGA’s business. Rackauckas spent a dozen years as a prosecutor under her husband in the OC district attorney’s office before entering the private sector as a criminal defense attorney in 2004. Former OC Assemblyman Umberg was partner at Manatt and San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster LLP, which closed its Irvine office in 2008. He also served as deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton. Zipser also was a partner at Manatt as well as Morrison, and has served as president of the OC Bar Association and the OC chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers.
