Johnson & Johnson Vision has double vision.
The newly formed unit of New Brunswick, N.J.-based healthcare brand Johnson & Johnson has one eye on Santa Ana, which will get headquarters’ status and its own leader for the surgical device lines that were most recently known as Abbott Medical Optics Inc..
The operation’s other eye falls on Jacksonville, Fla., where J&J Vision’s contact lens business—made up mostly of Acuvue products—will be a co-headquarters location with a dedicated leadership team.
The Santa Ana-based operations will be headed by Tom Frinzi, who now holds the title of worldwide president of J&J Vision’s medical device business. The unit includes products used in cataract and laser refractive surgery. He previously served as a senior vice president at Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories, and was president for Abbott Medical Optics in the months prior to the unit’s sale.
Frinzi said he is excited about the prospect of Abbott Medical Optics becoming part of a very large company—parent Johnson & Johnson is 130 years old and a perennial member of the Fortune 500, with $70 billion in annual revenue. It has a market capitalization of about $334 billion and approximately 126,400 employees worldwide.
Frinzi said he expects limited personnel changes in the wake of the sale.
“Our current executives are keeping their roles. We are also looking to promote some of our people in the weeks to come,” Frinzi said. “Keep in mind that [Johnson & Johnson] is buying [Abbott Medical Optics] as an intact business, [an area] that they did not have a position in before,” Frinzi said.
Swami Raote—an area vice president of medical devices and vice president of Ethicon, Asia Pacific at Johnson & Johnson before the deal—has been named worldwide president of J&J Vision’s contact lens division in Jacksonville. The operation will include Abbott Medical Optics’ consumer eye health business—contact lens solutions and eye drops for dry eyes.
Frinzi and Raote will report to Ashley McEvoy, company group chairperson for Johnson & Johnson’s consumer medical devices business. She previously headed Johnson and Johnson’s vision care companies.
Johnson & Johnson is organized into three business segments: consumer, pharmaceutical and medical devices. Vision care is part of the latter.
The parent company reported $72 billion in sales and $19.8 billion in income before taxes for 2016––medical devices accounted for $25.1 billion and $5.6 billion, respectively––according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Frinzi said Abbott Medical Optics’ surgical business has been growing at an annual rate of about 12% to 13%.
He does not discount buying outside technology as a growth strategy, adding that Johnson & Johnson typically gets about half of its products from acquisitions.
“We are agnostic to outside opportunities to add to our portfolio,” he said.
The surgical business will get a new foothold in Japan with its Tecnis Symfony intraocular lens. The artificial lens, which provides greater range of vision than a monofocal lens that allows a person to see only at a distance, received Food and Drug Administration approval in July.
Abbott Medical Optics is no stranger to overseas sales—the company got approximately 60% of its revenue outside the U.S. before the sale to Johnson & Johnson.
“It will not be so much an expansion into any new markets, but [we are] just better positioned,” Frinzi said. “Bottom line is, [this acquisition] is good for [Johnson & Johnson] … good for Abbott, for the eye industry and patients. We are going to reach more patients and help them see the world better.”
Johnson & Johnson announced plans to remake its medical devices business through acquisitions last January after sales of medical devices fell 2.9% in the first nine months of 2015. The company announced in September, as part of its restructuring efforts, the acquisition of Abbott Medical Optics for $4.3 billion.
