ON THE MEND
Acquisitions, R & D; Adds Boost Employment at Biggest Drug Makers
By VITA REED
Orange County’s 10 largest drug makers saw a solid overall gain in job growth in the past year, though it was one company that accounted for most of the hiring.
The Business Journal’s annual list of drug companies either based in Orange County or with operations here is ranked by local employment. The list, which debuted in 2001, includes 10 companies with 4,315 workers, up 14% from a year earlier.
The gains mark an increase from last year’s list, when drug makers’ spinoffs and restructuring led to an 8% decline in employment.
Two locally grown drug makers,No. 1 Allergan Inc. of Irvine and No. 3 Valeant Pharmaceuticals International of Costa Mesa,dominated the list, along with No. 2 Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. of Israel. Teva bought former No. 2 Sicor Inc. of Irvine last fall.
Allergan, Teva and Valeant account for 84% of Orange County’s total drug workforce.
Allergan, which makes Botox, a highly popular drug for removing wrinkles and other uses, and several eye pharmaceuticals, is the longtime leader on OC’s drug landscape, accounting for some 56% of the jobs catalogued on this week’s list.
The drug maker saw its local workforce jump 28% to 2,430 employees, up from 1,900 a year earlier. Without Allergan’s gain, the remaining nine drug makers would have posted flat results.
During the past year, Allergan made a couple of key acquisitions, including a $230 million buy of Oculex Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Sunnyvale-based eye drug hopeful. Allergan already had a small stake in Oculex, which makes a drug and a biodegradable polymer used to get the drug to the back of the eye.
The company also named Dr. Scott Whitcup executive vice president, research and development. Whitcup replaced longtime R & D; head Lester Kaplan, who retired.
Allergan had a mixed bag on the regulatory front. Food and Drug Administration regulators cleared Botox as a treatment for excessive sweating, but quashed the specialty drug maker’s approval bid for Tazoral, a psoriasis drug, pending more clinical studies.
The company, meanwhile, is fighting a lawsuit by Irena Medavoy, half of a Hollywood power couple, who alleges that she became ill after receiving Botox shots to treat migraine headaches. Allergan has denied Medavoy’s allegations and has called the complaint “frivolous” in the past.
Teva, which develops and makes generic injectable drugs and pharmaceutical compounds used to make other drugs, retained the No. 2 spot from prior years with a 12% workforce increase to 819 local workers.
The drug maker spent about $3.4 billion last fall to buy Sicor, which had been based in OC since 1997 and had reinvented itself after an unsuccessful bid to be a biotech player in the early 1990s.
Valeant, formerly known as ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., saw a 26% drop to 376 local workers. A company spokeswoman said the decline is a result of the sale of its dosimetry radiation monitoring business to a former executive.
Last November Valeant changed its name in a bid to distance itself from controversial founder Milan Panic. The company has shucked off business units and cut back manufacturing operations after a 2002 board and management shakeup.
Valeant’s also been dealing with slumping sales of its ribavirin drug to treat hepatitis C, a liver disease. Ribavirin sales have dropped as Valeant partner Schering-Plough Corp. faces competition from Switzerland’s Roche Holdings AG’s hepatitis C combination that includes the medicine.
The Business Journal’s list also includes sales and marketing offices of large global drug makers.
No. 4 Eli Lilly & Co., which is based in Indianapolis and is the originator of antidepressant Prozac, counts an estimated 300 workers at its sales office in Anaheim.
No. 5 Pfizer Inc. of New York, which has operations at the Irvine Center Towers near John Wayne Airport, has an estimated 200 workers in its regional sales office. Pfizer’s drug roster includes Viagra, the sexual dysfunction medication that’s become a cultural touchstone since its introduction six years ago.
And Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., the No. 7 drug maker that’s also based in New York, has an estimated 40 workers in an Aliso Viejo distribution office.
The largest employment gain on a percentage basis came from No. 6 Tustin-based Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc., which said its local jobs grew 46% to 83 workers.
Earlier this year, Peregrine won a European patent for a cancer treatment and was given a domestic patent for its methods of treating cancer, arthritis, eye diseases and other conditions that are dependent on the growth of new blood vessels. The drug maker has boosted its R & D; staff 36% to 45 in the past year.
Other companies on the list: No. 8 Stason Pharmaceuticals Inc., which was flat at 25 workers; No. 9 Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc., up 38% to 22 employees; and No. 10 Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc., which fell 13% to 20 workers.
Stason, Spectrum and Cortex all are based in Irvine.
No companies dropped off the list.
