Aliso Viejo-based Clarient, a GE Healthcare company, is working on a product push as part of a major growth initiative of its new corporate parent.
Stamford, Conn.-based General Electric Co. wrapped up its $587 million buy of the cancer testing company in December through its Britain-based GE Healthcare unit.
GE Healthcare, which has annual sales of about $16.9 billion, sought Clarient to help it build a $1 billion-plus yearly diagnostic business centered on cancer and other conditions.
Clarient provides cancer testing to pathologists, oncologists and drug makers.
“We’re going to focus in three areas,” said Ron Andrews, Clarient’s chief executive who has been with the company since 2004 and oversaw its transformation from a microscope maker.
The three-fold focus includes: getting new diagnostic tests to market; creating tests for groups of genes in the blood to help doctors monitor the effects of cancer drugs; and “the marriage” of diagnostic tests with GE Healthcare’s imaging business in order to improve the processes for biopsies.
Andrews said being able to put medical imaging with biopsy devices would give doctors a better way to diagnose and treat conditions such as breast cancer, which tends to be made up of multiple tumors rather than a single tumor.
“Going forward, we’re going to work with GE to be able to light up the tumor so you’ll see the different areas of tumor within an image,” Andrews said.
That in turn would allow doctors to isolate and get a better understanding of cancers in the multiple tumors.
Andrews said being part of GE gives Clarient more room to pursue broad strategies.
“It’s almost like we’ve gone private now,” he said. “We’ve got a great investor in GE but we don’t have to worry about Wall Street and we don’t have to make decisions quarter-to-quarter.”
Plans to Grow
Expansion is also on Clarient’s plate.
“Clarient’s growing like crazy here—we’re looking for more space and we’re going to be adding more people here,” Andrews said.
The company now has about 450 employees and could hire 60 to 80 more workers this year, according to Andrews.
Most of the new hires are expected to be based in Orange County with jobs running the gamut from billing to research and development.
Clarient also will be looking for a new headquarters here and setting up an East Coast office to take some pressure off of its Aliso Viejo laboratory.
Clarient nearly is at capacity at its current 78,000-square-foot facility in Aliso Viejo.
Andrews emphasized that Clarient will stay local, adding that GE Healthcare has decided to keep the company’s name and logo.
Going Global
Clarient also is looking at global expansion.
Andrews said the company plans to be offering tests in seven to 10 countries by the end of next year.
Andrews added a title—he is now head of GE Healthcare’s molecular diagnostics business.
“My job is to look for technologies and different types of cancer tests that might either fall into our lab or might go into a product-type business for other areas in the world,” Andrews said
“It’s a little overwhelming for Clarient to be part of such a big organization, so I’d be less than honest if I said that it hasn’t come without some pain,” he said.
Andrews added that selling to GE brought “amazing stability for my employees and a great exit for my shareholders.”
Safeguard Scientifics Inc., a Wayne, Pa.-based company that once was Clarient’s majority owner, netted $144 million from the company’s sale to GE Healthcare. Safeguard owned 28% of Clarient at the time of the sale.
