Edwards Seeking Alliances Ahead of Spin-Off; Team Spinnaker Becomes e-rehab
Even with warnings about possible complications and side effects associated with laser eye surgery, nearsighted people have flocked to pay an average of $2,300 per eye to get the Lasik procedure.
So, if people with myopia (nearsightedness) are clamoring for the surgery, then those with hyperopia and presbyopia (farsightedness) would also fork out top dollars to ditch reading glasses, wouldn’t they?
Those at Refractec, an Irvine-based company with 15 employees, think so. They’re looking forward to entering the lucrative vision-correction market early next year with a device to correct farsightedness.
Refractec President and CEO Mitch Campbell, 35, believes his company’s Viewpoint CK System machine will provide vision correction at a lower cost and with no side effects. The unit is the size of a VCR and costs about $30,000, compared with $500,000 for a laser unit.
The procedure in question is called conductive keratoplasty (ck). A hair-thin probe is inserted into the cornea and heated by the release of radio-frequency energy. Depending on the severity of the farsightedness, the insertion is repeated from eight to 32 times around the cornea. The heating shrinks the collagen around the edge of the cornea, causing the center to rise.
“The procedure is done outside the optical zone,” Campbell said.
The Viewpoint machine already has been approved for use in Europe, and the company is now just completing its last phase of U.S. clinical trials. Refractec will file for FDA marketing approval in the third quarter and expects to start selling in the U.S. in early 2001.
“The market is extremely large, bigger than it is for myopia,” Campbell said. “We’re in a market where everybody is affected by vision problems at one point in their lives.”
Campbell estimates there are 80 million potential farsighted patients in the U.S. alone.
Refractec, however, faces competition. Sunrise Technologies of Fremont expects to roll out a system using a high-temperature laser, called laser thermal keratoplasty. Sunrise is about six months away from FDA approval and expects to begin marketing the laser in the summer, a company official said.
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Officials at Baxter’s CardioVascular Group (newly named Edwards Lifesciences), say the company will spin off at the end of the first quarter, ahead of schedule. The company’s first trading day on the New York Stock Exchange will be April 3, under the ticker symbol EW.
The group reported 1999 sales of $906 million, essentially unchanged from 1998.
Leading up to the spin-off, the cardiovascular unit is expected to announce new product distribution alliances. Recently, the unit has received exclusive rights to distribute the A-Syst, a circulatory support system manufactured by Sacramento-based A-Med Systems. The system is designed to augment the heart’s pumping capability during coronary artery bypass surgery.
Team Spinnaker, a San Juan Capistrano manager of independent rehabilitation provider networks, has changed its name to e-rehab. The company, which also consults with companies on dealing with workplace injuries, changed its name because it has integrated all services on the Internet at www.erehab.com. The web site provides online information, feedback and training; e-rehab serves some 1,000 rehabilitation sites including the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Ochsner Clinic and private practices in the country and overseas.
e-rehab recently acquired Preferred Therapy Providers and Isernhagen Work Systems from Minneapolis-based Health Fitness Corp. Preferred Therapy Providers is an IPA that serves more than 600 clinics and IWS provides rehabilitation services to large corporations.
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PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. has acquired Harris Methodist Health Plans of Arlington, Texas from Texas Health Resources (THR). Officials expect the transaction, effective Feb. 1, will add between $9 million and $15 million to net income. The acquisition will also add some 300,000 members to PacifiCare’s HMO membership in Texas, bringing the total membership to 500,000. PacifiCare has established a long-term agreement with THR’s hospital. Meanwhile, PacifiCare also is partnering with Employease Inc., Atlanta, which provides human resources, benefits management and employee self-service applications as a service over the Internet. PacifiCare will initially offer the service to California customers and eventually expand to those in eight other states.
Alteer Corp. of Irvine, has received $4.6 million in additional funding for its launch of the ASP (Application Service Provider) model that integrates clinical and administrative functions of physician’s practices. The system provides a portal for patients to get healthcare information over the Internet and paperless medical records to physicians and medical staff.
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Children’s Hospital of Orange County and its affiliated physicians have partnered with Gateway Medical Group of Anaheim, giving Gateway’s pediatric patients access to all of the services offered at CHOC. Adult patients of Gateway will continue to receive services at Anaheim Memorial Hospital.
