Edwards Lifesciences Corp. is getting out of a biotechnology play.
Irvine-based Edwards said last week it’s selling a gene-based heart drug development program for $7.5 million in stock and royalties.
Edwards, which makes heart valves, is selling the angiogenesis drug program to Sangamo BioSciences Inc. of Richmond, Va.
Edwards started the program with Sangamo in early 2000, prior to Edwards’ spinoff from Baxter International Inc.
In 2002, Edwards renewed the Sangamo product development pact, which got some media attention at the time because of Wall Street concerns that the device maker was narrowly focused on heart valves and was seeing slowing growth.
Edwards since has abandoned its diversification program to focus on valves.
Selling the drug program frees Edwards to spend money on research and development “priorities more central to our strategy,” Chief Executive Michael Mussallem said.
The transaction’s expected to close at the end of the year.
Edwards and Sangamo have worked on drugs based on Sangamo’s zinc finger DNA binding proteins. The theory was that if there weren’t enough blood vessels to make the heart work, a zinc finger could be used to prod the gene that controls blood-vessel growth.
Former St. Joe Official Gets Job
Jeffery Flocken, who spent eight years as chief operating officer at St. Joseph Health System of Orange, is Tenet Healthcare Corp.’s new senior vice president in charge of the California region.
Flocken, who is working out of Dallas-based Tenet’s Santa Ana office, succeeds Stephen Newman, who was just promoted to chief operating officer.
Tenet’s California region is made up of 17 hospitals in California and an academic medical center in Omaha, Neb. After selling four hospitals in OC in recent years, Tenet’s local facilities include Fountain Valley Regional Hospital Medical Center; Irvine Regional Hospital Medical Center; Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center; Los Alamitos Medical Center; and Placentia-Linda Hospital.
Flocken, who’s 52, joined Tenet last August as vice president of the California region. Besides St. Joseph, his career also includes 17 years at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, the last eight as president and chief executive.
Staffing Agency Eyes OC
BrightStar Healthcare is looking locally in an expansion effort and hopes to open up to eight offices in the county by the end of 2007.
Chicago-based BrightStar, which now has 19 offices, provides nursing and caregiver health services to people in their homes. It also provides healthcare workers to corporate clients, including hospitals and nursing homes.
The company, which franchises its offices, has prospects in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, said Shelly Sun, the company’s founder and president.
OC was picked, she said, by a software program that helps BrightStar identify markets with high concentrations of people 65 years of age and older.
BrightStar is going with a franchise approach because it is a personal services business, Sun said.
“We’re looking for dedication,” she said. “And I don’t know that you can necessarily replicate that with employees that are a thousand miles away from my husband and I who started the company.”
BrightStar, which is privately held and has revenue of around $3 million, is self-funded. Sun said the company has experience supplying healthcare professionals to school systems, as well as to the Veterans Administration. Competitors include Gentiva Health Services Inc. of Melville, N.Y., which formerly was a client of Lake Forest’s Apria Healthcare Group Inc.
Bits and Pieces:
Irvine’s Orange County Technology Action Network, known as Octane, hosted a forum on stem cell research at the end of November at the University of California, Irvine. Speakers included Susan Bryant, a UC Irvine vice chancellor, and Hans Keirstead, interim co-director of UCI’s Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo was certified as a primary stroke center by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The certification recognizes Mission’s stroke center for following national standards and guidelines intended to improve recovery for stroke patients Visiogen Inc., an Irvine-based eye device maker, was featured during the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting last month in Las Vegas. Visiogen’s activity at the event centered around Synchrony IOL, its foldable replacement lens that’s placed in a patient’s eye following cataract surgery Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Irvine said it would receive a $5 million milestone payment from Par Pharmaceutical Cos. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., for sumatriptan injections, a prescription drug that’s used to treat acute migraine headaches. Sumatriptan is the generic version of GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s Imitrex. Spectrum also said it settled out of court with GlaxoSmithKline in a patent case over Imitrex injection The University of Kansas Hospital has opened a fully automated medical laboratory that features a testing system by Beckman Coulter Inc. of Fullerton. Hospital officials say the new Beckman system will be able to double its blood testing output to 5.2 million tests a year.
