Medical device makers with operations in Orange County added over 900 employees in the year ended July 31, up 4.5% year-over-year, according to Business Journal research. The top four reported above-average growth, fourth-ranked Microvention Inc. in Aliso Viejo up 29%, the biggest move.
Nearly a third of ranked companies’ employment are estimates because they didn’t furnish numbers.
Top Notches
The top three medical device makers ranking remained unchanged: No. 1, Edwards Lifesciences Corp., No. 2, Applied Medical Resources Corp., and No. 3, B. Braun Medical Inc.
Edwards (NYSE: EW), OC’s largest publicly traded company, added 587 and continues to prepare for more growth. It recently filed plans with the city to build two office and laboratory buildings, an employee amenities facility and a parking structure—totaling 471,450 square feet—on 7.6 acres next to its Red Hill Avenue headquarters.
The Irvine-based heart valve maker with a $29 billion market cap told the Business Journal it continues to hire.
Rancho Santa Margarita-based Applied Medical employed 2,759, up 5%, and B. Braun in Irvine had 1,842, up 9%.
• Microvention, owned by Tokyo-based Terumo Corp., jumped from No. 6 with 1,158 employees. The neurovascular company moved into its new headquarters in Aliso Viejo nearly a year ago, a 205,000-square-foot, 5-acre complex built to support growth and expansion. It said the site, which includes a five-story parking structure, can accommodate more than 800 workers.
Performers
ICU Medical Inc. (Nasdaq: ICU) and Glaukos Corp. rose, ICU from No. 22 to No. 20, Glaukos up one to No. 22. The San Clemente-based companies are publicly traded.
ICU Chief Executive Vivek Jain said during a recent earnings call that while second-quarter revenue fell $10 million, the infusion product company “actually shipped and sold more units of IV solutions than we did in Q1.”
He said it’s positioned to scale, as “almost all the transactional noise [of Hospira] is starting to get behind us.” It employs 225.
ICU bought Hospira Infusion Systems last year from Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) for $900 million. The addition, which includes IV pumps, solutions and devices, makes it one of the world’s biggest pure-play infusion therapy companies.
Glaukos added 42 workers to reach 210. The glaucoma device maker received Food and Drug Administration approval for the iStent Inject Trabecular Micro-Bypass System in June. The device, an upgrade of the original iStent, which was approved in 2012, is designed to reduce intraocular pressure in adults with mild-to-moderate open-angle glaucoma undergoing cataract surgery.
Chief Executive Thomas Burns said in a recent earnings call that “over the course of 2018, we’ve been scaling, manufacturing and building necessary launch inventories, [as well as] finalizing marketing campaigns and readying the U.S. sales organization in anticipation of iStent Inject U.S. commercialization.”
• No. 26, VQ OrthoCare in Irvine, built employment 34% to 110. It makes brace products for bone, joint and soft-tissue conditions.
It announced in July that its BioniCare Hand System is now indicated for hand osteoarthritis, in addition to rheumatoid arthritis. The product, comprised of a conductive glove that delivers electrodes, includes a touch-screen signal generator with a Bluetooth tracking option that allows patients to track treatment and print records for their doctors.
J&J
Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) Irvine device campus, comprised of No. 8, Biosense Webster, No. 14, Advanced Sterilization Products, which again tied with Abbott Laboratories, No. 32, Acclarent Inc., No. 32, Mentor Worldwide LLC, and unranked Cerenovus, which will be down one company next year.
Cerenovus is unranked because it didn’t provide local employment numbers. It was launched about a year ago. The stroke care product maker combined Pulsar Vascular Inc. and Neuravi Ltd. J&J announced in June that it’s selling its Advanced Sterilization Products business to Fortive Corp. (NYSE: FTV) for about $2.8 billion. Shlomi Nachman, J&J’s company group chairman of interventional solutions and specialty surgery, said the business is no longer a “strategic fit” for the company.
The transaction is scheduled to close by early next year.
The New Brunswick, N.J.-based company also owns No. 13, Johnson & Johnson Vision in Santa Ana.
• Medtronic PLC employs about 1,600 at neurovascular and heart valve divisions in Irvine, which ranks No. 7 and No. 9.
• Masimo Corp. remains No. 10, growing 3% to 690 employees in Irvine.
• No. 11, Tustin-based Canon Medical Systems USA, changed its name in January. Formerly Toshiba Medical Systems Corp., it was sold to Canon Inc. in 2016.
Canon said the acquisition is part of a new growth plan that includes expanding into healthcare business. Toshiba Medical has a broad medical equipment portfolio that includes diagnostic X-ray systems, MRI, diagnostic ultrasound and diagnostic nuclear medicine systems. It also has medical imaging and in-vitro diagnostics products.
The renamed company employs 640, up 1%.
• Endologix Inc. declined 48% to 236 employees. It ranks No. 19, down three spots.
The Irvine-based company, which develops minimally invasive products for treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, has gone through rough patches, including product recall and quality-control issues. It announced this year that it named new leadership and repositioned portfolio.
Chief Executive John Onopchenko, who joined in October as chief operating officer, was appointed to the new role in March, succeeding John McDermott, who’d been with the company for over a decade.
It named Jeffrey Fecho chief quality officer in July, a role created following a recent FDA safety alert indicating leaking issues in its Endologix AFX with Strata device.
