2006 will go down as a big year of change for the University of California, Irvine’s medical school.
Earlier this month, Thomas Cesario, the longtime dean of UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and College of Health Sciences, said he’ll be leaving his post come November.
Cesario, 65, has run the medical school since 1995.
His 12-year tenure is more than double the average of what medical school deans serve.
The move is the second big one for UCI’s medical school this year.
Ralph Cygan stepped down as chief executive of UCI Medical Center in January, in the wake of a scandal around the hospital’s liver transplant program.
UCI closed the liver program after regulators pulled its certification because of mismanagement and poor care.
More than 30 patients died while awaiting transplants.
Cesario, like Cygan, plans to stay on UCI’s faculty.
He plans to work on developing international teaching and research programs in healthcare. He’s taught at UCI since 1972.
The move by Cesario wasn’t surprising.
Back in January, Chancellor Michael Drake created a new job,vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the College of Health Sciences,to oversee both UCI Medical Center in Orange and the School of Medicine in Irvine.
A national search to fill that spot is ongoing, according to the university.
Cesario “played a significant role in UCI’s growth as a major research university,” Drake said earlier this month.
The medical school’s research funding was less than $40 million before Cesario took over and was $138 million last year. He also hired more than 70 researchers.
In 2004, Cesario created the College of Health Sciences, which houses programs in nursing science, pharmaceutical sciences and public health, and started departments in urology and emergency medicine.
Pyott on Advanced Medical
Allergan Inc.’s 2002 spinoff of Advanced Medical Optics Inc. gave the Santa Ana eye products maker freedom to do things that Allergan would have been “killed by Wall Street” for doing, David Pyott said.
The chief executive of Irvine-based drug maker Allergan talked about splitting off Advanced Medical in a recent speech at UCI’s business school.
Allergan spun off Advanced Medical in 2002 to focus on its drug business, which was growing faster than Advanced Medical, which makes eye surgery products and contact lens solutions.
“Beginning in 2001, it became clearer and clearer that we could no longer indiscriminately invest” in what would become Advanced Medical, Pyott said.
Sales at the eye business only were growing around 4% a year at that time, compared to 20% for Allergan’s drug business, he said.
Wall Street would have pounced on Allergan for investing in eye products versus its drug business, Pyott said.
Former Allergan executive and Advanced Medical boss Jim Mazzo has “done fabulously well,” Pyott said.
In recent years, Mazzo has made two big deals worth $1.6 billion.
Advanced Medical’s market value has grown from $400 million at the time of the spinoff to more than $3 billion today, Pyott said.
“So pretty cool job, Mr. Mazzo,” he said.
Pyott also turned his attention to the drug business. Specifically: generics.
Eli Lilly & Co., the Indianapolis-based drug maker, lost some 85% of prescriptions written for Prozac after generic versions of the antidepressant came out.
“I suppose Ross Perot would call that ‘the giant sucking sound,'” Pyott said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“It takes about 12 years to develop a drug,” he said. “So under the law of averages, you’ve got seven years before you’re invaded by generics.”
Bits and Pieces:
In other Allergan news, researchers at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine said they found that the drug maker’s Tazorac, a skin medication, combined with oral antibiotics, was an effective, long-term treatment for people with moderate or severe acne CoreValve, Irvine, said it used its ReValving system to implant a pig tissue heart valve over a 91-year-old woman’s severely diseased aortic valve in a third-phase clinical trial.
