One of Orange County’s higher-profile medical device executives is moving on to an unspecified next step in his career.
James Mazzo last week announced plans to retire as president of Santa Ana-based eye device and product maker Abbott Medical Optics Inc. at year’s end.
Abbott Medical makes eye surgery and contact lens care products.
Mazzo led the company through a 2002 spin-off from Irvine-based Allergan Inc., and its 2009 sale to Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories.
He recently completed a term as head of AdvaMed, a Washington, D.C.-based industry advocacy group.
Murthy Simhambhatla, head of Abbott Laboratories’ Carlsbad-based Ibis Biosciences unit, was named to succeed Mazzo.
Simhambhatla is an engineer by training who came to Abbott after it bought Indianapolis-based device maker Guidant Corp. in 2006. He’ll continue to lead Ibis while working with Mazzo on the transition for the rest of the year. He’ll continue to run Ibis after taking the reins at Abbott Medical.
“You transition when you think it’s the right time to take it to the next level, and you feel better that you can walk away,” Mazzo, 55, told the Business Journal. “It’s time for me to move on.”
He credited his executive team and other employees at Abbott Medical for clearing the way, and indicated the door is open for a next chapter for him.
“I like to build companies,” Mazzo said. “I like to take stages of companies (to the) next level. I’ve committed to finish the year here. And then at the end of this year, the beginning of next year, I’ll take on my next opportunity.”
Mazzo spent 22 years with Allergan Inc., the Irvine-based maker of Botox, before he was tapped to lead the spin-off of Allergan’s medical device business in 2002 into what was then known as Advanced Medical Optics Inc.
“We realized we had two distinct businesses,” Mazzo said in a 2002 interview shortly after the spin-off became effective.
Mazzo quickly built Advanced Medical into an industry leader through several deals.
Buys
It spent $1.3 billion in 2004 to buy Visx Inc., a Santa Clara-based medical device maker that brought AMO lasers used in vision correction surgery. Advanced Medical also bought the cataract surgery business of New York-based Pfizer Inc. that year for $450 million.
“We have a penchant to grow this company,” Mazzo said after Advanced Medical announced the Visx deal. “We’re not shy, and we’ve done a great job of integration.”
Advanced Medical’s acquisition run continued in early 2007, when it spent $808 million for Irvine-based laser maker IntraLase Corp.
Challenges
Growing Advanced Medical involved some challenges, including handling recalls of contact lens solutions in late 2006 and early 2007, and an unsuccessful bid for competitor Bausch & Lomb Inc.
AMO was sold to Abbott in 2009 for $2.8 billion. The deal gave the parent company entree into the ophthalmic business.
Mazzo stayed on to run the business, and added the title of Abbott senior vice president.
Mazzo has been leading Abbott Medical through a run of new device launches that started earlier this year, and has said the unit would be an “R&D machine” in coming years. He shifted the unit’s focus to organic growth, backed by the financial muscle of Abbott, which has annual sales of about $39 billion and a market value of about $98 billion as of last week.
“When you have a parent like [Abbott Laboratories], you want to make sure you fulfill your promise,” Mazzo said recently.
Mazzo’s profile in the larger medical device community rose when he was named executive board chair of AdvaMed. He also is heavily involved in the local business community, serving on several boards at the University of California, Irvine including that of UCI Foundation, as a board member of Chapman University in Orange and the University of San Diego.
