Alcon Inc. will shift research and development out of its Irvine operations and convert that space to manufacturing.
The move comes as Alcon takes on a new Lake Forest location that’s expected to add new employees for drug development and clinical trials.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based eye-care company will move 400 research and development workers early next year from its Alton Park-way location into a Serrano Creek office complex once home to Western Digital Corp. Alcon signed an 11-year lease and will renovate the property before the move-in.
Hires
The company plans to hire at least 40 workers in Lake Forest over the next three years, spokesperson Dave Jackson said.
“We’re going to be adding pharmaceutical development capabilities there as well,” Jackson said.
The developments represent a first for the company, which hadn’t previously managed clinical trials out of Orange County.
Alcon also has an operation in Aliso Viejo, where its LenSx Lasers unit is based. Alcon bought LenSx for $362 million two years ago.
“LenSx is its own area of the business, and everything’s right there in Aliso Viejo,” Jackson said. “The rest of the surgical systems are (going) to be split between the R&D and the manufacturing, and that’s where the split between Lake Forest and Irvine comes in.”
Alcon has launched several eye-surgery devices over the past 10 years, including the Infiniti cataract surgical devices and Constellation, used for retinal procedures.
It awaits Food and Drug Administration word on Centurion, a new cataract surgical device, Jackson said.
“What you’re seeing is growth,” he said. “We’ve outgrown the facility we currently reside in in Irvine.”
Alcon management had a choice of going with a larger facility or a second facility.
“We decided to go with the second facility,” Jackson said.
Alcon—which plans to keep all of its drug manufacturing in Fort Worth—will continue to look at how quickly it is growing before it decides to add more OC jobs, he said.
“We’re very committed to Southern California,” Jackson said. “Part of the reason we want to add capabilities in Southern California is that it’s a large market with a lot of talent in the areas that we are focused on. We want to take advantage of that.”
Lease
Alcon recently renewed the lease on its 190,000-square-foot facility in Irvine, which will continue to house Alcon’s eye-surgery device manufacturing group. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Serrano Creek has three buildings with a total of 184,500 square feet of space and is located near Foothill (241) Toll Road.
Alcon is a unit of Swiss healthcare company Novartis AG.
Novartis bought the part of Alcon that it did not previously own for $12.9 billion from Switzerland-based Nestle AG in 2010.
Alcon competes with several businesses either based in Orange County or have significant operations here. Those include Allergan Inc., the Irvine drug maker that makes eye drugs; Bausch & Lomb Inc., which has an Aliso Viejo eye surgery hub; and Santa Ana-based Abbott Medical Optics, a unit of Abbott Laboratories of suburban Chicago.
Alcon makes contact lenses and contact lens care solutions, in addition to eye drugs and surgical products.
