Biosensors International Group Ltd., a Singapore-based medical device maker, is scaling back its Newport Beach operations.
The company plans to cut or transfer about 80 Southern California workers with the bulk of the affected jobs at its U.S. headquarters in Newport Beach.
Biosensors employs about 65 people in Newport Beach. The company also has operations in La Jolla, which could see a gain of jobs from Orange County as well as some cuts or transfers.
In all, Biosensors plans to cut 40 to 50 workers.
The company is likely to keep a downsized office in Newport Beach, where Chief Execu-tive Mike Kleine and Chief Financial Of-ficer Kevin Sayer work.
Biosensors makes blood pressure kits, drug-eluting stents and catheters that are used during heart and other surgeries. It counts about 300 workers companywide.
The company is “currently focused on Asia and Europe,” Sayer said in an e-mail.
Neither Sayer nor Kleine were available for further comment last week as both were in Singapore.
The company’s Newport Beach office houses administrative and engineering jobs. La Jolla has the company’s advanced engineering operations.
Biosensors has offered Newport Beach and other workers a chance to transfer to La Jolla and other locations in Europe and Asia, Sayer said.
Biosensors expects some workers won’t choose to stay with the company at its other offices, according to Sayer.
The company has been in Newport Beach for more than four years.
Stent Push
Biosensors is making a big push for its drug-eluting stents, which are placed into a patient’s narrowed and diseased arteries and release drugs that help prevent blockage.
Its Web site says the company is “well positioned to emerge as a leader in drug-eluting stents, an evolving therapy that is rapidly gaining market share from traditional cardiovascular therapies.”
Its drug eluting-stent products include BioMatrix, Axxion and BioFreedom.
Biosensors began selling BioMatrix in Europe in April. U.S. clinical trials haven’t started yet, according to the company.
In 2006, the company was tapped as one of 50 to be watched by Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry magazine, according to its Web site. The magazine mentioned Biosensors’ stent, which is made of a biodegradable polymer.
Domestic sales of drug-eluting stents totaled some $1.8 billion last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. Of that, Boston Scientific Corp.’s Taxus stent accounted for $1 billion in sales, while Johnson & Johnson’s Cypher accounted for $825 million in U.S. sales.
But the drug-eluting stent market has hit some turbulence in recent years due to safety concerns raised by doctors.
Other companies that are involved in drug-eluting stents include Medtronic Inc., whose Endeavor stent line was approved in February, and Abbott Laboratories Inc., which is testing its Xience drug-eluting stent.
Biosensors works with other companies, such as Japan’s Terumo Medical Corp., a maker and marketer of more than 1,500 medical products.
Terumo uses BioSensors’ BioMatrix technology in its Nobori drug-eluting stent system.
Biosensors recently said it amended terms of its license agreement with Terumo.
Under the deal, Terumo will pay $40 million to Biosensors’ European unit in exchange for a reduction in revenue-sharing provisions that apply to sales of the Nobori stent outside Japan.
Biosensors was founded in 1990. Besides Newport Beach, La Jolla and Singapore, it has offices in India, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan.
OC Tie
Kleine assumed the chief executive role in January. He succeeded founder Yoh Chie Lu as part of a transition the company planned for once its stents were brought to market.
Kleine has some history in OC. He had served as chief executive of MicroVention Inc., a maker of catheter-based devices for treating ballooning blood vessels in the brain that was based in Aliso Viejo.
Terumo bought MicroVention, which had raised some $53 million in venture funding in its history, in 2006 for undisclosed terms.
Kleine’s history also includes serving as chief executive of Sorin Biomedical Inc., which closed a 250-person plant in Irvine in the late 1990s. Sorin Biomedical, part of Italy’s Sorin Biomedical SPA, now has North American operations in Vancouver, British Columbia.
