AmerisourceBergen Gets CFO From AmeriSource
The Pros, Cons of Consumer-Driven Benefits; OC Startups Present at Confab
HEALTHCARE
by Vita Reed
AmerisourceBergen Corp. has named a successor to departing Chief Financial Officer Neil Dimick in a move that further solidifies Valley Forge, Pa.-based AmeriSource Health Corp.’s dominance after its acquisition of Orange-based Bergen Brunswig Corp.
Michael DiCandilo, vice president and corporate controller for AmerisourceBergen, is set to take over as chief financial officer in April when Dimick is set to depart. In December, Dimick said he is exiting because he doesn’t want to leave California for AmerisourceBergen’s headquarters outside Philadelphia.
The appointment marks a clean sweep for AmeriSource of the top ranks of the newly combined company. DiCandilo, like Chief Executive R. David Yost and Chief Operating Officer Kurt Hilzinger, hails from AmeriSource.
While billed as a merger of equals, AmeriSource has put its mark on the new company. DiCandilo’s appointment gives AmeriSource seven of the 12 top executive spots at the new company.
Besides Chairman Robert Martini, son Brent Martini,a senior vice president and head of the company’s largest unit,now ranks as the top Bergen official in the new company.
DiCandilo was named vice president and corporate controller in October, shortly after AmeriSource’s buy of Bergen. He joined AmeriSource 12 years ago, serving as regional vice president of finance for the drug distributor’s northeast region. He became vice president and controller of AmeriSource seven years later.
The combined company expects to see $150 million in cost savings by 2004, DiCandilo said, as well as more efficient distribution and better customer service “all along the pharmaceutical supply chain.”
DiCandilo’s background also includes eight years with Ernst & Young in various accounting management positions. He has a bachelor’s in accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Employer Health Benefits Debated
While Medicare gained daily media attention at last month’s Health Care Forecast Conference put on by the University of California, Irvine’s Graduate School of Management and College of Medicine, it wasn’t the only game in town.
Jon Gabel, vice president of Health Research and Educational Trust, which is operated by the Chicago-based American Hospital Association, talked about trends in employer-offered health insurance. Gabel used results from several surveys, including one by his trust and the Kaiser Family Foundation that involved 846 California employees.
Gabel’s presentation differentiated between “consumer-driven” healthcare and defined contribution plans. Consumer-driven offerings hold more financial risk for consumers, more choice in healthcare providers or benefit design, and usage of electronic health insurance medical data.
The pluses of consumer-driven models have as much to do with the negatives of managed care, he said, including consumers viewing cost-control as “taking away my benefits” without cost-sharing and reducing the use of health services.
The cons: plans not being able to secure discounts; lack of holding providers accountable for quality; and potential impairment of access to care for low-income populations.
When it came to the near future of employer health benefits, Gabel said it would include increased patient cost-sharing, tiered-network products to gain prominence and personal spending account offerings to grab market share.
Road Trip
Five Orange County medical device and drug companies took part in the Southern California Biomedical Council’s annual investment strategic partnering opportunities conference last week in Los Angeles.
The companies were: Chemokine Inc., an Irvine developer of drugs designed to stop cancer cells from spreading; Glaukos, a Laguna Niguel company developing an implantable medical device to treat glaucoma; HemaVation, a Costa Mesa-based developer of devices to treat acute renal failure and septicemia; Orqis Medical of Lake Forest, which is developing a cardiac recovery device for congestive heart failure patients; and Irvine-based Refractec Inc., which makes radio frequency instruments for treating farsightedness.
Bits and Pieces:
Cooper Cos., Lake Forest, said CooperSurgical, its women’s healthcare unit, agreed to acquire the bone densitometry business of Norland Medical Systems Inc., White Plains, N.Y. Norland’s products, which are used to evaluate osteoporosis, had sales of $8.5 million last year. Cooper said it would pay $5 million for the business at closing, and may pay additional amounts not to exceed a maximum purchase price of $12 million based on three-year performance Beckman Coulter Inc., Fullerton, said it released a high-sensitivity laboratory test to help doctors determine a patient’s risk of coronary artery disease. The test, CRPH, measures levels of C-reactive protein, which is produced in the liver and released into the bloodstream as a result of infection or injury, such as tissue damage or inflammation caused by coronary artery disease.
