Another Bergen Official Out at AmerisourceBergen
Memorial’s New Boss Hails from OC; Carlsbad’s Quorex Gets $10.6M
HEALTHCARE
by Vita Reed
There’s a little less Bergen in Ameri-sourceBergen Corp.
Michael Montevideo, vice president and corporate treasurer of the company created by AmeriSource Health Corp.’s buy of Bergen Brunswig Corp. last year, recently left. Montevideo, who hailed from Orange-based Bergen Brunswig, decided he didn’t want to move from California to AmerisourceBergen’s Valley Forge, Pa., headquarters.
J.F. Quinn, a former treasurer at IKON Office Solutions Inc., also based in Valley Forge, replaces Montevideo.
Separately, AmerisourceBergen also said it appointed Tim Guttman as vice president and corporate controller. Guttman, formerly vice president of finance at Woodland Hills-based Syncor International Corp., replaces Michael DiCandilo, who was promoted to senior vice president and chief financial officer in March.
DiCandilo, who hails from AmeriSource, replaced Neil Dimick, the former chief financial officer at Bergen who also declined to move to Pennsylvania. Separately, Brent Martini, son of AmerisourceBergen Chairman Robert Martini and president of AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., a large subsidiary, plans to leave the company next month.
A good portion of the merged company’s leadership now comes from AmeriSource, including Chief Executive R. David Yost and Chief Operating Officer Kurt Hilzinger. But former Bergen officials have a presence, including Chairman Martini and vice presidents Charles Carpenter, Steven Collis and Linda Burkett.
In other AmerisourceBergen news, the company said it completed consolidating its Portland, Ore., distribution center into its Seattle facility. AmerisourceBergen officials have indicated that the company’s facility just over the county line in Corona is a model of what they are seeking for their distribution system.
Memorial Boss From OC
Memorial Health Services, the Long Beach-based nonprofit hospital operator, has tapped a longtime official at one of its Orange County hospitals to replace Thomas Collins, who announced his retirement as president and chief executive earlier this year.
Barry Arbuckle, chief executive of Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, is set to take over for Collins. Arbuckle, who joined Memorial in 1989, had attained senior executive positions at four of the organization’s hospitals.
In his new position, Arbuckle said, he wanted to continue Memorial’s focus on clinical quality issues, among other things. He pointed to an effort that brought together 1,000 Memorial-affiliated physicians to develop best-practices guidelines.
“We’re never going to be the biggest hospital system,” Arbuckle said.
Instead, he said he wanted the system to build upon clinical quality and “communicate that to the customer. We still have a lot of work to do.”
While at Saddleback, Arbuckle was responsible for expanding the facility’s services, including a 56,000-square-foot critical care pavilion that opened this summer. Earlier in his career at Memorial, Arbuckle was also responsible for opening up Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, from its roots as a single health-plan hospital.
Before coming to Memorial, Arbuckle was a lecturer at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where he also earned a doctorate degree in developmental psychology. The Aliso Viejo resident also received another doctorate in health policy and administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
As for Collins, he is staying on as the new board chairman. Collins became Memorial’s president and chief executive in 1993. Under his watch, Memorial grew to a five-hospital system with 1,430 acute-care beds, more than 8,000 staff members and 3,000 affiliated physicians. Anaheim Memorial Medical Center is Memorial’s other OC facility.
Drug Maker Gets More Money
Quorex Pharmaceuticals Inc., Carlsbad, received an added $10.6 million in second-round funding. The new infusion brings Quorex’ second round to $29.1 million and its overall total raised to $30.6 million, said Gary Atkinson, the biotechnology company’s chief financial officer.
Prism Venture Partners, a Boston-based firm, is the lead investor and is a returning investor. Other investors in the round include Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., the venture arm of Johnson & Johnson, Tullis-Dickerson & Co. of Greenwich, Conn., and Pacific Growth Equities of San Francisco, Atkinson said.
Quorex is focused on broad-spectrum antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections. The money is set to be used to continue research and development and prepare its drugs for clinical trials, Atkinson said. He said he expects the funding to last through the end of 2003.
Bits and Pieces:
Duggan Study Institute LLC, Colton, has opened a satellite campus for pre-licensure dental training and continuing education for dentists in Costa Mesa. Some 150 students, a good portion of whom are foreign-trained dentists, are taking pre-clinical classes and lab workshops at the institute Irvine-based Relsys International Inc. added a submission manager to its Argus Safety software line, which provides for electronically sending pharmaceutical safety reports. Pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies use Relsys’s software.
