Another link to the world of sports with reports that federal investigators are looking into whether Hall of Fame baseball player Eddie Murray traded on inside information in advance of Abbott Laboratories $2.8 billion buy of Advanced Medical Optics in Santa Ana—now known as Abbott Medical Optics—in 2009. Murray spent several seasons as a Baltimore Orioles teammate of Doug DeCinces, who later played several years for the Angels before settling into OC’s business world, developing Strawberry Farms Golf Club in Irvine, among other ventures. Murray later came to the Angels for a brief stint. DeCinces last year agreed to pay $2.5 million in fines, with no admission or denial of wrongdoing, in the trading of Advanced Medical shares …
The latest buzz on the investigation came just before a Wall Street Journal report that Abbott Laboratories is challenging a key provision of healthcare reform in hopes of keeping what it considers to be its proprietary trade secrets in order to protect the “massive amount of capital” and reward the “great risk” behind drugs such as its Humira, which treats rheumatoid arthritis. The healthcare reform law that’s now under review by the Supreme Court would allow other companies to produce “biosimilars” to compete with Humira at a lower price. Abbott says that regulators would need its trade secrets in order to approve any biosimilars and argued in a petition to the FDA that such a move would violate the company’s constitutional rights …
LOL: Retired Air Force Colonel, former POW, business consultant and author Lee Ellis had a good one-liner to go with some poignant stories and advice for a banquet room full of execs at the Pacific Club during a dinner hosted by the Audit Committee Roundtable of Orange County last week. Ellis told the crowd about the tapping system he and fellow prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton used to communicate on the sly—a laborious code that led to the development of a lot of abbreviations. “We had shortcuts 30 years before texting,” he said. His lessons from Vietnam, and how they apply to leadership and management, can be found in his new book, Leading With Honor …
More recommended reading: Tom McKernan’s letter in this month’s edition of Westways, the monthly magazine of the Automobile Club of Southern California (No. 4 on this week’s list of OC-based private companies, which starts on page 16). McKernan lets readers know that he has stepped down as CEO and will remain chairman, paved the way for successor Bob Bouttier—who will have an intro letter in the July issue—and remembered to thank Judy, his “supportive and patient” wife of 41 years …
Credit the staff of Prego for keeping cool under the hottest conditions during a fire that caused no serious injuries but plenty of damage at the popular spot at Irvine Towers. Jayne Kennedy, OCBJ’s senior events manager, finished up lunch when the blaze started on the roof, and wasn’t aware until a waiter approached and calmly told her “you should leave—the building is on fire.” Prego is sending some of it’s banquet business to Natalia Olenicoff at Andrei’s.
