Investor ties and a growth-minded business plan got Robert Grant to trade Botox for Bausch & Lomb.
Grant, an executive with Irvine’s Allergan Inc., said earlier this month he’s leaving the maker of Botox and other products to head up a local unit of Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch & Lomb Inc.
Come Aug. 1, Grant will become chief executive of Bausch’s eye surgery device unit in Aliso Viejo. He’s now a vice president overseeing Allergan Medical, the unit that handles Botox and other medical cosmetics for the drug maker.
Grant said he was approached about the Bausch & Lomb job by people he knows at Warburg Pincus LLC, the New York-based investor that paid $3.7 billion for the maker of eye care products in 2007.
“That’s how I was introduced to the opportunity,” Grant said.
Bausch & Lomb’s Aliso Viejo operation stems from the company’s 2008 buy of Eyeonics Inc., maker of replacement lenses for the eye. After the acquisition, Bausch made Aliso Viejo the hub of its products used in eye surgery.
Earlier this year, Bausch signed a 10-year lease that doubled its space to 61,000 square feet in Aliso Viejo. The company employs about 100 people locally, including a number of people who are relocating from San Dimas, according to a Bausch spokeswoman.
The company plans to further expand here, according to Grant.
“That will include investment, both in new products and technologies, and potentially those that make sense from an acquisitive standpoint,” he said.
Two of Bausch’s key rivals are nearby: Santa Ana-based Abbott Medical Optics Inc., a unit of Abbott Laboratories Inc. of the Chicago area, and Switzerland’s Alcon Inc., which employs more than 770 workers in Irvine.
Grant will face off with another former Allergan alum, Jim Mazzo, at Abbott Med-ical. Mazzo spun off what was Advanced Medical Optics from Allergan in 2002 and oversaw the company’s 2009 sale to Abbott.
Abbott, Alcon and Bausch dominate the market for eye products.
“I think (Bausch) can play a much larger leadership role,” Grant said.
Bausch’s eye surgery unit includes Crystalens, a replacement lens from Eyeonics used to treat presbyopia, or the inability to focus up close that is usually caused by aging.
Other products include intraocular lenses for cataract patients, devices to remove the eye’s natural lens during cataract surgery and those used to help eyes retain their shape during surgery.
The company tapped Grant because he “stands out among leaders in his field” and has a “stunning track record,” Bausch Chief Executive Brent Saunders said.
Eyeonics cofounder J. Andy Corley, who’s led Bausch’s eye surgical unit since the acquisition, is set to become an adviser to Saunders.
Grant said he leaves Allergan on good terms and with encouragement from the company’s executives.
He praised Chief Executive David Pyott and President F. Michael Ball.
“David Pyott has been an incredible mentor to me and I’ve learned a great deal from him,” Grant said. “I will continue, hopefully, to learn more from him. He’s been an incredible CEO.”
Ball is set to oversee Allergan Medical as the company looks for a successor to Grant, who joined in 2006.
Before Allergan, Grant held various positions in the medical device industry, including chief executive of Biolase Technology Inc., an Irvine maker of lasers used in dentistry.
Grant has been responsible for the growth of Allergan Medical, which came out of Allergan’s $3 billion acquisition of Santa Barbara-based Inamed Corp. in 2006.
That buy gave Allergan Juvéderm, a lower-face filler, breast implants and the Lap-Band, a reversible device implanted around the stomach to help people lose weight.
Allergan added wrinkle-remover Botox Cosmetic and Latisse, an eyelash grower, to the Allergan Medical mix.
Grant’s eye surgical device unit won’t directly compete with Allergan. Allergan has not sold eye surgical devices since it spun off what’s now Abbott Medical.
Bausch does make some eye drugs that compete with products from Allergan. n
