Irvine drug maker Allergan Inc. is shutting down a collagen plant in the Bay area city of Fremont by early next month, according to a filing with the state of California.
Allergan is cutting 59 jobs, mostly in manufacturing.
Earlier this year, Jeff Edwards, Allergan’s chief financial officer, called the plant “high-cost” during one of the drug maker’s earnings calls.
Allergan’s decision, Edwards said, was fueled by a shift in focus away from collagen to a different type of wrinkle treatment.
The company’s flagship injectable wrinkle filler, Juv & #233;derm, is made with hyaluronic acid, a moisturizing agent that’s naturally found in skin.
Hyaluronic acid fillers have “a much lower cost of goods,” Edwards said.
Allergan got the collagen plant as part of its $3 billion buy of Santa Barbara’s Inamed Corp. in 2006.
The drug maker first announced plans to close the plant at the start of 2007.
Allergan said in its filing with the state Employment Development Department that it is paying $1.5 million to $2 million in worker severance costs and up to $6 million to end contracts and a lease.
The Fremont plant isn’t the only former Inamed facility that Allergan has closed. The company earlier closed a plant in Ireland and moved work to a Costa Rican facility.
In other Allergan news, swimmer Mark Spitz,who held the record for the most gold medals in a single Olympic Games until Michael Phelps broke it in Beijing,is set to make seven figures from an endorsement deal for Botox by the end of this year.
Spitz, who is 58, and 46-year-old gymnast Nadia Comaneci, were signed by Allergan earlier this year as celebrity endorsers of the wrinkle-removing drug.
Allergan also has Virginia Madsen, the 47-year-old actress, as a Botox endorser and tennis stars Tracy Austin, 45, and Lindsay Davenport, 32, who tout Juv & #233;derm.
Patient Monitoring Market
Good news for Irvine-based Masimo Corp.: The market for patient monitoring devices is expected to grow in the next five years, according to a research report.
BCC Research Inc. of Wellesley, Mass., says the market for patient monitoring devices and related products was worth $6.2 billion last year. The market researcher expects the market to be worth $8.6 billion by 2013, a growth rate of 5.7%.
Masimo makes devices that measure various substances in patients, including levels of oxygen and hemoglobin, a substance in blood that carries oxygen.
Monitoring devices, which make up the majority of the market, could grow at 6.2% to $5.1 billion by 2013, BCC forecasts. Handheld and wearable monitors could see a decline, with bedside and tabletop monitors likely to take market share, according to the report.
Hospitals are the second-largest part of the overall monitoring market, following home users, BCC said.
Growth at hospitals is expected to slow because of consolidation and the emergence of alternative healthcare providers, such as outpatient surgical centers, according to BCC.
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are the third-largest market for patient monitoring devices, the report said.
‘More Important than Sex’
Endocare Inc., an Irvine-based medical device maker that was the subject of a hostile takeover bid from Texas device maker HealthTronics Inc., got a mention in a recent column by CNBC “Funny Business” correspondent Jane Wells.
Endocare, which focuses on making devices for cryoablation,or the removal of diseased tissue by freezing,grabbed Wells’ attention through a mention in Urology Times, a trade publication. The following is from her column:
“Just renewed my subscription, and it’s a good thing: Apparently some doctors are working on the ‘male lumpectomy,’ a process called ‘focal cryoablation.’ A company called Endocare,a teeny tiny microcap that isn’t profitable yet,says the procedure is the happy middle ground between doing nothing and, well, taking out the whole thing. I learned something very important. According to the company, men facing prostate cancer have two worries, in this order of priority: 1) dying, 2) any treatment will ‘kill their sex lives.’ So there is actually ONE THING more important than sex.”
Bits and Pieces:
University of California, Irvine Medical Center, an Orange teaching hospital, said it earned a second “magnet hospital” designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The designation recognizes nursing excellence. Hospitals that are awarded magnet status have to maintain rigorous standards as part of the four-year designation Paul Glyer, senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development for Fullerton medical testing gear and supply maker Beckman Coulter Inc., spoke at the Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Un-plugged conference last week.
