Orange County medical entrepreneur and philanthropist Mark Chapin Johnson has sold his Chapin Medical Co. to Ameri-sourceBergen Corp.
Johnson, who lives in Cowan Heights, said AmerisourceBergen paid seven figures, or “between $1 million and $9.99 million” for Chapin Medical.
In November, Johnson moved Chapin Medical from Corona to another building he owns in Anaheim Hills.
Drug distributor AmerisourceBergen is based in Pennsylvania and bought Orange’s Bergen Brunswig Corp. in 2001.
Chapin Medical distributes plasma and drugs to treat gunshot wounds, cancer, AIDS and hemophilia. Doctors use the products in open-heart surgery and emergency care.
Johnson said he decided to sell Chapin Medical because he saw “foundational changes that are occurring in the specialty (drug) distribution space nationally.”
“I really felt that (AmerisourceBergen) would bring some resources and assets to the table that would allow Chapin Medical to just expand exponentially, if we were able to come to an agreement,” Johnson said.
The deal, he said, allows Chapin Medical, which will be renamed Chapin Drug Co., to continue operating on its own under AmerisourceBergen.
Johnson said he plans to stay on and run the business as president of Chapin Drug. The business is set to fall under AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group, which is based in Dallas and run by Steve Collis, a former Bergen Brunswig official.
Johnson said he’s taking some ribbing from wife Barbara: “She says I’m now a corporate hack.”
Chapin has faced its share of issues in recent years, including a price slump for plasma. The company distributes plasma made by several medical giants, including Baxter International Inc. of suburban Chicago, Germany’s Bayer AG and ZLB Behring, a unit of Australia’s CSL Ltd.
Johnson struck the deal to sell Chapin with R. David Yost, AmerisourceBergen’s chief executive, and Kurt Hilzinger, its president and chief operating officer.
He also is a longtime friend of AmerisourceBergen Chairman James Mellor, a Laguna Beach resident, and Robert Martini, AmerisourceBergen’s retired chairman who engineered the sale of Bergen to AmeriSource Health Corp.
Chapin’s 40,000-square-foot, two-building former corporate office in Corona still is for sale, Johnson said. The company now employs 15 people, down from a peak of 100, Johnson said. He said he expects to add workers as part of AmerisourceBergen.
Chapin, founded in 1974, is on pace for $40 million to $50 million in revenue this year, according to Johnson.
Johnson, a well-known figure in OC society and California Republican politics, saw Chapin through a rough spot in the early 1980s by cutting workers and closing offices, a situation he blamed on “my own total, complete incompetence.”
By 2003, Johnson said he planned to gradually move Chapin out of California, citing a double whammy of rising business costs and a downturn in the plasma business.
“For a distribution type business, it’s basically become intolerable,” Johnson said at the time. “Workers’ comp rates, taxes, fees, permits,I mean everything that we deal with.”
Johnson’s society ties have included the Orange County Performing Arts Center and South Coast Repertory Theater. He has ties to Chapman University and YMCA Orange County. He also has the Mark Chapin Johnson Foundation for philanthropic activities.
In politics, Johnson is a cofounder of the New Majority, a Republican group that wants the GOP to focus on business and economics, rather than hot-button social issues. In 2002, Johnson served as finance chairman for Richard Riordan’s governor campaign.
Business Journal executive editor Rick Reiff contributed to this article.
