Orange County has long been synonymous with medical device makers. Now the Orange County Business Council has chronicled a bit of that legacy.
In “Orange County Biomedical Resources,” a four-page flyer, the Business Council calls OC the birthplace of the medical device industry.
The flier encapsulates info on the medical products, pharmaceutical and biotechnology offerings within OC.
Among the highlights:
n Orange County has a third of Southern California’s 2,500 medical product manufacturers.
n Southern California sends some 25% of all Federal Drug Administration product approvals out into the world (and probably a goodly number of other products that don’t require approval).
n Biomedical firms in the area employ more than 15,000 OC residents.
n The University of California, Irvine ranks 11th on a National Research Council list of U.S. public universities in overall quality of its doctorate programs.
n UCI Life Science departments spend $56 million a year on research; $200 million in new L.S. buildings are planned over the next 10 years.
n The average annual wage for the medical device industry is $42,281. For biotech and pharmaceutical professionals, it’s $51,346.
There’s also a helpful map of biomedical company and education institution locations at the end of the Business Council slick that looks like a dartboard in an extremely popular British pub.
UCI At It Again
As if that wasn’t enough to put a spring in your summer step, UCI is proving its premier perch in the research food chain with work on depression. William Bunney, UCI distinguished professor of psychiatry, is checking on whether mutations in so-called clock genes trigger the clinically serious descents into emotional dead zones.
Clock genes are the ones researchers credit for helping our bodies react to 24-hour changes. Now Bunney’s noticed how past research shows abnormal patterns in those 24-hour functions,such as sleep, mood, body temperature,in depressed patients.
At the same time, treatments for those day-to-day irregularities have, he said, made patients far less depressed.
All this may indicate that genes play a core role in depression. If so, research findings could presage potential treatments.
Bunney -with a name like that, how he could he not be happy? – is now using sophisticated genetic scanning equipment to see if his hunch is right. He teaches in the UCI College of Medicine.
Blowing the House Down
Tenet Healthcare Foundation recently kicked in $30,000 to help kids breathe a little easier. The money went to the American Lung Association’s “Huff & Puff” efforts,an asthma education program for children in kindergarten through second grades.
The program uses puppets and games to work with kids diagnosed with asthma. This summer, nurses from 10 Tenet facilities will be trained to “Huff and Puff” in local schools near those hospitals.
Parents get the puppet show too, as well as the more formal info and material on how to manage asthma in our very youngest.
The Foundation doles out cash for Tenet Healthcare Corp., whose Western division is based in Irvine. The money went to the American Lung Association’s Los Angeles chapter,maybe it’s the air up there. Nearby Whittier Hospital Medical Center is participating.
A Take on the Nursing Shortage
A recent article in Revolution, a national nursing magazine, blames the national nursing shortage,including the need for bounty-hunting bonuses by hiring hospitals,in part on “years of market and industry-led restructuring programs” such as downsizing.
Another dissin’ riff on the perils of managed care? Maybe. But the publication, backed by the California Nurses Association, says it includes “methodological analysis” girding the findings, as well as counsel on how to fix,and how not to fix,the problem.
Free copy: (510) 273-2246
More info: www.calnurse.org
Bits and Pieces:
Hey,got enough travel medical insurance? Didn’t think so. Wallach & Co. says at least 90 million people a year are exposed to financial risk via travel (we send 45 million out; other countries send a similar number in). Wallach is a travel medical plan administrator (800) 237-6615 Allergan Inc. CEO David Pyott keynoted the May meeting of the Association for Corporate Growth’s OC Chapter. His talk was on “Reinventing a Company” . Brown Simpson Partners I exercised an option to buy $8 million of Irvine-based Endocare Inc.’s debt OC Supervisors allocated $100,000 to study bacteria in San Juan Creek One of the aforementioned 800 OC biomed companies, InSight Health Services Corp., reported robust third-quarter growth in revenue and profit,up 17% and 279%, respectively, vs. a year ago. InSight is a Newport Beach-based diagnostic imaging services company.
