Medical device maker I-Flow LLC is settling into its new Irvine headquarters and preparing for life as a unit of a yet-to-be-created public company.
I-Flow makes devices that manage surgical patients’ pain with the intent of reducing narcotics use. It was an independent company until 2009, when Dallas-based conglomerate Kimberly-Clark Corp. bought it for $324 million.
It’s part of Kimberly-Clark’s healthcare unit, which is scheduled to be spun off this year into a new public company called Halyard Health Inc.
Halyard is going to be based in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Ga. Besides I-Flow, the business will include respiratory devices, infection prevention devices, and digestive system devices, among others.
Kimberly-Clark’s healthcare business accounted for $1.6 billion in sales last year, about 7% of its full-year sales of $21.2 billion, and $230 million in operating profit.
Halyard is expected to have a market value of about $6 billion upon completion of the spinoff, which has a target date of Nov. 1, said Roger Massengale, I-Flow’s general manager.
The goal of Halyard is to become “an independent company focusing on advancing the health of patients and the healthcare industry by delivering clinically superior [devices and processes] for preventing infection, eliminating pain, and speeding recovery,” Chris Lowery, Halyard’s future chief operating officer, said in a letter to customers.
As for I-Flow, it will be business as usual with some tweaks. Massengale said he expects the I-Flow name to be retired next year.
Beneficial
He said I-Flow has benefited from being part of Kimberly-Clark.
“The resources that Kimberly-Clark has brought have been rather substantial,” Massengale said, adding that those include executive management, regulatory affairs and quality control, as well as a way to sell I-Flow’s devices outside the United States.
Kimberly-Clark has brought other muscle to I-Flow, including growth through deals. For example, I-Flow bought the anesthesia business of Texas-based LifeTech Corp. a year ago, bringing it needles, catheters and accessories associated with peripheral nerve block procedures, which are done during and after operations to reduce pain.
Research and development, quality control, regulatory, marketing, customer service and general administrative functions are handled out of Irvine, where about 100 people work.
“It’s a great environment. It’s a little different than our old facility,” Massengale said of I-Flow’s new offices in the Discovery Business Center in the Irvine Spectrum.
I-Flow decided to move from Lake Forest because of changes in its business, Massengale said.
One was moving distribution to Ontario in the Inland Empire.
It’s introduced what Massengale called “a series of new products.”
T-bloc
One example is the T-bloc tray, which includes a needle, a catheter to deliver local anesthesia, and other devices that allow surgeons to conduct nerve blocks.
“Using ultrasound, the physician can find the [surgical] target … and the needle, which looks like a light saber,” Massengale said as he demonstrated how T-bloc works. “Our technology allows the needle to light up. It allows the physicians to see the needle much easier, and therefore it makes the procedure easier and safer.”
I-Flow’s product line also includes its legacy On-Q pain medication infusion pump and the On-Q Silver Soaker catheter, which delivers pain medication to wound sites.
It makes its devices in Mexico, where it employs a little more than 700, and has 1,001 employees companywide.
Its devices are used in hospitals’ inpatient and outpatient settings, as well as in ambulatory surgery center settings.
Other companies that make pain management infusion pumps include a pair of Chicago-based companies, Baxter International Inc. and Hospira Inc., and B. Braun Medical Inc., a Pennsylvania-based unit of B. Braun Melsungen AG in Germany. Baxter and B. Braun both have Orange County operations.
I-Flow tries to distinguish itself from competitors with sales and clinical staff expertise.
Salespeople are “focused intently on pain control. They don’t sell thousands of products; they sell a limited number of products, [and they are] in some sense experts on pain control,” said Massengale, who has been with I-Flow since 1996.
“Almost all surgeries generate some sort of pain, some more than others,” he said, giving a total knee replacement and rotator cuffs as examples.
He noted that I-Flow’s devices are used by some sports clinics, particularly in those operated by Dr. James Andrews, a noted orthopedic surgeon among professional athletes.
Using I-Flow devices, he said, can help patients get out of the hospital or an ambulatory surgery center quicker and hasten the rehabilitation process.
