Viasys Healthcare Inc., a Pennslyvania medical device company that makes lung testing gear and other products, has expanded in Yorba Linda.
The company’s Viasys Respiratory Technologies unit signed a 10-year lease valued at $26 million for an extra 30,000 square feet of space at the Savi Tech Center in Yorba Linda.
Viasys had 100,000 square feet of space in the business park along the Riverside (91) Freeway, according to real estate sources.
The lease comes after a renovation of the Savi Tech Center, which used to include some manufacturing space but now is just offices.
Earlier this year, Viasys Respiratory moved production of its devices to diagnose and treat breathing problems to Palm Springs, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Some sales and administration jobs came from Palm Springs to Yorba Linda, likely spurring the need for more space.
Viasys officials were unavailable for comment last week.
Steve Batcheller and Ben Seybold, brokers with CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s Anaheim office, handled the lease for landlord Arden Realty Inc. of Los Angeles, along with Arden’s Andy Batcheller.
Joe Sciolla, a broker in the Boston office of Cresa Partners LLC, represented Viasys.
Viasys Respiratory, which employs around 275 people in Orange County, had $228 million in sales for the first half of 2005. The unit makes up about half of Viasys’ yearly sales.
The Yorba Linda business, which used to be known as SensorMedics Corp., sells products under that name and under the Erich Jaeger brand.
Viasys Respiratory’s lung testing machine measures and analyzes breathing to evaluate breathing and heart conditions. The unit also sells disposable products such as filters and gases.
The devices are used to analyze disorders such as sleep apnea, a condition where breathing stops for periods during sleep. Doctors urge early diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea because it can be linked to conditions such as irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.
The products are deeply rooted in OC’s medical device industry. What became Viasys Respiratory started more than 20 years ago as part of Beckman Instruments, the grandfather of the county’s biomedical industry and predecessor to Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc.
Back in 1983, managers at Beckman’s physiological measurements unit led a buyout of the business to form SensorMedics, the forerunner to Viasys Respiratory.
After that came growth, acquisitions, a patent fight with a rival and unrealized plans for a public offering.
Thermo Electron Corp., a Massachusetts-based maker of electronic measurement devices, laboratory gear and other scientific instruments, bought SensorMedics for $70 million in 1996, a year after the company settled a patent fight with Medical Graphics Corp. of St. Paul, Minn.
Thermo eventually spun off its healthcare businesses in 2001 as Viasys Healthcare Inc. to focus on measurement and detection devices.
The Viasys lease is the second sizable one lately for Savi Tech Center. First American Real Estate Solutions, part of Santa Ana-based First American Corp., recently signed a seven-year lease valued at $6.2 million for 47,198 square feet of space.
