Our most valuable company, Edwards Lifesciences Corp., threw a “60 years of Discovery” event Tuesday night. If any OC company has a right to party … market value of $36 billion and climbing (see related story, page 1) better than a 50-fold increase since its spinoff April 3, 2000 from Baxter International; birth mother of one of our “superstar industries,” medical devices; growing its business abroad but also at home, the Irvine home campus ever-expanding, nearing 4,500 jobs; and brightest candle on the cake—saving thousands upon thousands of lives.
Closest Edwards CEO Michael Mussallem came to a bow was telling the dinner crowd at the Atrium: “Look around, there’s a lot of star power.” There was … co-founder of Edwards Labs, co-creator of the mechanical heart valve, cardiac surgeon Albert Starr: “Power of collaboration,” Starr said, a nod to his late engineer partner, company and valve co-founder Lowell Edwards. “His idea to look at the lubricity of blood.” Over 100 of world’s top physicians, including cardiologists and clinicians, were joined by their partners, the valve recipients: 13-year-old San Clemente actor-director Max Page (mini-Darth Vader, VW Super Bowl commercial), who’s had as many surgeries as his years, the latest in February; and Yolanda Randlett, who received her Starr-Edwards valve in 1963: “Awesome engineering,” said her daughter, who recently got a chance to peek at her mom’s valve. Randlett’s daughter works at Intel Corp.
Mussallem reminded all at the outset that pre-spinoff, Edwards “had stopped innovating,” and that post-spinoff, Edwards, well, “It took us a while to find our away, more than a few technologies that weren’t great for patients.” The failures filled a video screen. “But we owned our failures. It strengthened our resolve. Our culture is dream big. It’s humbling what we do.” … Brings us back to co-founder Starr, 92, who decided to focus anew on his original dream: creating an artificial heart. Dream big.
Tastings of Chapman grad Jason Wise’s latest SOMM documentary, “SOMM 3,” start Friday at Pacific Club in Newport. First SOMM film in 2012 unearthed the crazy-hard exam that master sommeliers must pass, only 182 in U.S. “SOMM 3” includes Steve Spurrier, not the ol’ ball coach from Florida, but the arranger of the “Paris Judgment” in 1976, which launched Napa Valley and wine country …
More birthdays. Happy 40th to Shea Riding Center, world-class therapeutic equestrian center. Nonprofit celebrated with over $1M at its annual barbecue, “and lingering contributions still coming in,” said Outreach Director John Caldwell. Shea was founded by Newport investment manager Derek Lewis, JDL Securities, Corp., and his wife, Nancy, for their son Michael, born with cerebral palsy, and sits on eight acres in San Juan Capistrano donated by Walnut builder J.F. Shea Co. Inc.
