Eyeonics Inc., an Aliso Viejo-based medical device maker that filed to go public in July, is being bought by Bausch & Lomb Inc. for undisclosed terms.
The company, which makes replacement eye lenses for cataract surgery patients, is set to become part of Bausch & Lomb’s surgical business. The buy is set to close in the current quarter.
J. Andy Corley, who cofounded and ran Eyeonics as chief executive, is set to run Bausch & Lomb’s U.S. surgical business from Aliso Viejo.
The buy supplants Eyeonics’ plan to raise about $86 million in a public stock offering.
Given Wall Street’s downturn, the buyout likely proved more appealing to Eyeonics and its investors, including Versant Ventures, which has offices in Newport Beach and Menlo Park.
William Link, a Versant managing director, was Eyeonics’ first investor and worked with Chief Executive Corley at Allergan Inc. of Irvine. Link serves as an Eyeonics director.
For the quarter ending Sept. 30, Eyeonics sales were up 127% from a year earlier to $10 million.
The company’s lead product is the Crystalens, an implantable lens designed to offer users “natural vision” after cataract surgery.
The company received regulatory clearance for Crystalens in 2003 and began selling it in 2004.
In 2005, Corley and cofounder Stuart Cumming won an Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award from the Business Journal.
