Healthcare services continue to trend toward convenience and personalization.
St. Joseph Health—now Providence St. Joseph Health, thanks to its merger this past summer with Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health and Services—continues to address the shift by bringing care, wellness and preventative services to companies’ headquarters. The healthcare provider now has seven residential and corporate “wellness corners” in Southern California, including centers at the Irvine headquarters of medical device maker Masimo Inc. and tech biggie Western Digital Corp.
St. Joseph more recently expanded its home healthcare services franchise with Nurse Next Door in Vancouver, Canada.
The trend also is evident in the medical technology and device sectors, the former attempting to use data to promote “personal medicine” and the latter turning its attention to the consumer market. Masimo, which makes patient-monitoring devices used in hospitals, has rolled out a health and wellness monitor that is available for purchase in Apple stores and on Apple.com.
Person to Watch:
JIM MAZZO
The industry veteran plans to grow Carl Zeiss Meditec AG’s ophthalmology business, including acquisitions. The Jena, Germany-headquartered medical technology company, which focuses on diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases, appointed Mazzo as global president of ophthalmology in July.
Its U.S. headquarters is in Dublin, with an Orange County presence now emphasized by Mazzo.
Zeiss has a comprehensive range of devices supporting glaucoma diagnosis—including visual field data, optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans and fundus images—but not treatment. It has only VISULAS, a laser that creates a thermal burn in retinal tissue in order to shrink blood vessels—preventing blood vessel bleeding resulting in a retinal detachment.
“We got quite a glaucoma cluster here for us to [acquire a product],” said Mazzo, referring to Orange County companies in that space. He declined to discuss details, but said he is also interested in opportunities in the dry eye space.
Zeiss employs 2,900 people worldwide—more than half are based in the U.S—and has a market cap of roughly $2.9 billion.
Company to Watch:
ABBOTT MEDICAL OPTICS
We’re picking Abbott Medical Optics based on new developments in store when its $4.3 billion acquisition with Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, N.J. closes next year.
The Santa Ana-based device maker, a subsidiary of Abbott Laboratories Inc. in Abbott Park, Ill., will join a new parent with a complementary line of eye care offerings.
A former AMO executive said the transaction represents “good synergy,” combining “J&J’s strong presence with contact lenses and [AMO’s focus on laser vision correction treatment] to target different segments of the spectacle-free population.”
AMO makes devices used in intraocular lens replacement surgery, which include cataract surgery and laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). AMO also has lens-cleaning solution products that further add to Johnson & Johnson’s roughly $2.6 billion contact lenses business. Johnson & Johnson doesn’t sell lens-cleaning solution.
The merged entity can provide a wider range of offerings, from contact lenses to surgery.
AMO’s operations are to remain in Orange County, according to industry executives.
