Orange County’s healthcare sector marks the beginning of a new era in 2015—one that no longer features Allergan Inc. as a locally based company. The drugmaker, which has been OC’s largest public company by market capitalization for a number of years, is about to become a unit of Actavis PLC, a drugmaker with a tax domicile in Ireland that operates out of New Jersey.
Actavis expects its $68 billion buyout of Allergan to be final in 2015’s second quarter. Brent Saunders, who will serve as the combined company’s chief executive, has said that Allergan’s Irvine campus could become the base for Actavis’ specialty pharmaceutical operation.
The changes at Allergan set the stage for Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp. to become the largest publicly traded healthcare company based here by market value. Edwards is expected to hit the $1 billion revenue mark with its Sapien family of less-invasive heart valves (see related story, page 1).
Person to Watch
Michael Mussallem
In 2015, Mussallem, one of the deans of Orange County’s medical device sector, will enter his 15th year as chief executive of Edwards Lifesciences Corp.—the only leader that the heart valve maker has known since its spinoff from Chicago-based diversified device maker Baxter International Inc. in 2000.
Mussallem, who just turned 62, said he has “no current timetable for retirement.”
“I am proud to lead Edwards Lifesciences and am focused on working in partnership with our employees around the world to continue the successful implementation of our long-term patient focused growth plan,” Mussallem told the Business Journal in an e-mail.
Edwards has a comprehensive succession plan in place for the company’s senior leaders, he said.
Company to Watch
Kaiser Permanente
The Oakland-based health system’s local operations will start 2015 with a new executive director.
Mark Costa succeeds Julie Miller-Phipps, who served 12 years in the position, and will start his new job early next month.
Costa will take over an operation that includes hospitals in Anaheim and Irvine, along with medical offices throughout OC. He has been with Kaiser Permanente since 2005 and was most recently executive director of the organization’s Los Angeles Medical Center.
Look for Kaiser to strive to continue its “pacesetter” role as a pioneer of coordinating and integrating healthcare as other hospital operators align into similar forms. The overall healthcare system has been changing to meet the demands of reform, bringing a wave of newly insured patients to providers.
