Allergan Inc. piqued interest in more than its lineup of future products during the recent American Academy of Dermatology meeting earlier this month in Miami Beach, Fla.
“The biggest surprise at this year’s [meeting] came from Allergan, but it wasn’t from the pipeline—it was the presence of former [Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp.] chairman and CEO Jonah Shacknai, in [Allergan’s booth] and the announcement that Mr. Shacknai is now consulting” for Allergan, said Seamus Fernandez, a drug industry analyst for Boston-based investment bank Leerink Swann LLC.
Shacknai founded Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Medicis.
He left the company in December after it was acquired for $2.6 billion by Montreal-based drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.
The Medicis buy brought Valeant a roster of aesthetic drugs, including the lower face filler Restylane and Dysport, a botulinum toxin that competes with Allergan’s flagship Botox.
Allergan’s decision to bring Shacknai on as a consultant and his subsequent appearance in the company’s booth was characterized as “surreal” by doctors, salespeople and other companies, Fernandez wrote in a research report.
“Several small company representatives with whom we spoke were ‘shocked’ that [Valeant] did not sign Mr. Shacknai to a non-compete,” Fernandez said.
Valeant declined comment regarding Shacknai.
Fernandez also noted that Allergan and competitor Merz Aesthetics, a North Carolina-based unit of Merz Pharma AG in Germany, should benefit from Valeant’s decision to hike Restylane prices by 10% last month.
Restylane competes with Allergan’s Juvéderm line and Merz’s Belotero.
Doctors “with whom we spoke expect to immediately reduce their use of Restylane since most assume that neither [Allergan] nor Merz will follow Restylane as the price leader,” Fernandez said.
Griffin-American’s Buys
Newport Beach-based Griffin-American Healthcare REIT II Inc. recently purchased five medical office buildings for about $47 million total.
A press release noted that the healthcare real estate investor’s portfolio of properties is now valued at about $1.4 billion.
The deal includes buildings in Texas, Colorado and Louisiana.
Griffin-American previously was a unit of the former Grubb & Ellis Co., which was combined with then-Newmark Knight Frank last year to create Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.
Griffin Capital Corp. and American Healthcare Investors LLC took over sponsorship of Griffin-American in late 2011.
PathCentral’s Cloud
Irvine-based PathCentral Inc. has started the PathCentral Pathology Network, an open, cloud-based software platform.
PathCentral is a software and services company that offers pathologists—doctors engaged in the study and diagnosis of diseases—a new avenue for testing beyond big labs tied to hospitals and large medical groups.
The company offers independent pathologists and smaller pathology practices software and its own reference laboratory for testing. It emphasizes DNA-based and genetic testing.
PathCentral said Dr. Gregory Henderson is serving as the network’s chief medical advisor.
The software that PathCentral uses is delivered through cloud computing and is available online.
It’s similar to software used at larger laboratories such as Clarient Inc., a cancer testing provider in Aliso Viejo that’s a unit of General Electric Co.; Irvine-based US Labs, which is part of Burlington, N.C.-based Laboratory Corp. of America; and San Diego-based Genoptix Inc., now a unit of Novartis AG in Switzerland.
Bits and Pieces
San Clemente-based ICU Medical Inc. said that its line of needle-free intravenous connecters was chosen by healthcare providers more than twice as often as any other connector, according to Louisville, Colo.-based market tracker Global Healthcare Exchange LLC. ICU also said that Minneapolis-based brokerage Piper Jaffray initiated coverage on its stock. … Irvine-based dental laser maker Biolase Inc. said earlier this month that Chief Executive Federico Pignatelli would continue to draw a “symbolic annual cash salary” of $1 for the full year. Pignatelli, who owns some 5% of Biolase, said in a statement than he believes “a CEO’s compensation should be tied only to the financial performance of the companies they lead.” He’s been leading a turnaround of Biolase for the past two years, which have seen the company’s losses narrow over that time.
