Masimo Corp.’s long-running rivalry with another medical device maker has flared up again.
Irvine-based Masimo is offering hospitals a $1 million guarantee that its SET pulse oximeters will outperform Nellcor Puritan Bennett LLC’s devices in a test.
The move came about after Nellcor, part of Covidien Ltd., allegedly disparaged Masimo’s pulse oximeters, which measure oxygen levels in the blood. The two companies have sparred in court over patent infringement and antitrust laws.
Masimo created a Web site “aimed at separating fact from fiction.” The Web site “will openly address and dissect erroneous and misleading information” circulated by Nellcor, the company said.
The company created the Web site “in response to reports about Nellcor’s constant and aggressive dissemination of false information to clinicians,” Chief Executive Joe Kiani said in a release.
Nellcor denies any wrongdoing.
“We stand behind our efforts to partner with and educate our customers regarding the differences in the technologies that are available in the marketplace,” Cheryl Whitecotton, a Nellcor spokeswoman, said. “We always encourage our customers to make their own independent evaluations.”
Masimo and Nellcor’s scraps stretch back nearly a decade.
In 1999, Masimo sued Nellcor for allegedly violating patents on its motion-tolerant pulse oximetry devices, which improve the accuracy of oxygen level readings.
Nellcor filed patent suits of its own against Masimo’s signal processing technology.
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Masimo SET pulse oximeter: company certain it’s better than Nellcor’s |
A federal court eventually ruled that seven of Masimo’s patents didn’t infringe on Nellcor’s technology. Nellcor’s assertions of infringement “was merely a defensive response” to the original lawsuit, Kiani has said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld a $164.5 million jury award to Masimo in 2005. Nellcor then was part of Tyco International Ltd., which spun off its medical device business as Covidien last year.
Masimo also has argued that hospital purchasing groups violated antitrust laws by awarding contracts primarily to larger suppliers such as Nellcor. A Senate subcommittee criticized North Carolina-based Premier Inc. and Novation LLC., an Irving, Texas-based rival, for not signing deals with smaller companies such as Masimo.
Tenet Closes Nurse Registry
Tenet Healthcare Corp. has sold off several of its Orange County hospitals and is cutting back on some of its other local activities.
Tenet, which has a regional office in Santa Ana, filed papers with the state Employment Development Department showing that it let go of 207 people in its Tenet California Nurse Resources temporary employment agency unit in Anaheim.
But most of those nurses didn’t lose their jobs.
The unit primarily served Tenet’s OC hospitals when they were in need of extra nurses, said Jeff Flocken, a senior vice president with Tenet California.
“We just dispersed (the nurses) back into the hospitals that remain in Orange County,” Flocken said.
Tenet had to file papers with the state because of the number of nurses who worked for the agency.
With Tenet’s sale of local hospitals and its decision not to renew its lease at Irvine Regional Hospital and Medical Center, the company felt it didn’t have enough “critical mass” to justify the overhead to keep Tenet California going, Flocken said.
Sun Introduces Logo
Sun Healthcare Group Inc., an Irvine-based operator of nursing homes and other healthcare businesses, updated its logo as part of a rebranding campaign.
The company’s new logo is a light pale jade-green sun sitting in a blue hand with the phrase, “Caring is the Key in Life.” It replaces a gold sun in a purple box.
Sun said the logo would be used by its corporate operations, as well as subsidiaries such as SunBridge Healthcare Corp. and SolAmor Hospice. SunDance Rehabilitation Corp., another Sun unit, is going to use a variation.
Sun sought the rebranding to bring together different parts of its company, according to Chief Executive Richard Matros. Sun had used several brands throughout the company to differentiate each practice.
“These various brands do not serve the company well either from a marketing perspective or from a cultural one,” Matros said.
New workers will be able to relate to the company in a unified fashion under a new brand, he said.
