BOC GROUP UNITES HEALTH CARE BUSINESSES UNDER THE OHMEDA NAME
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
BOC GROUP UNITES HEALTH CARE BUSINESSES UNDER THE OHMEDA NAME in a restructuring announced at an Oct. 12 press conference in Washington, D.C. The move combines BOC's Ohmeda and Viggo- Spectramed device businesses and its Anaquest pharmaceuticals business. The companies will now operate as four divisions of Ohmeda: medical systems, medical devices, specialty products, and pharmaceutical products. Ohmeda President and CEO Roger Stoll said the restructuring of the critical care/anesthesia businesses is in line with the health care industry trends in the 1990s of "consolidation and contraction." Products handled by the medical systems division include anesthesia delivery systems and non-invasive patient monitors, which were previously sold by the old Ohmeda. Invasive monitoring, infusion therapy, and vascular access products are being manufactured and supplied by the medical devices division, making the group essentially equivalent to the old Viggo-Spectramed. The specialty products division, which primarily covers products that were formerly sold by Ohmeda, includes infant care, suction, oxygen therapy, and gas distribution systems. The specialty products division expects to file 510(k)s for improvements to its Care Plus incubator "in the near future" and for a new version of its BiliBlanket phototherapy system for light therapy to newborns with jaundice in spring or summer 1994. BOC Health Care had about 7,500 employees when the restructuring was first suggested in July 1992. The company has already nearly met its goal, which it set out to achieve by the end of 1994, of reducing the number of employees by 20% to about 6,000. A significant number of the employee cuts came earlier this year with the divestment of the firm's Glasrock home health care business. Other cuts have been made in middle management; the company's sales forces have not been significantly affected. As part of the reorganization, the U.S. sales operations of the medical devices and systems divisions have been integrated for non-metropolitan areas, effectively tripling the sales force behind the medical device division's products. In metropolitan markets, the two divisions' sales operations will remain separate. The company is planning additional moves in the "second phase" of restructuring, including possible partnerships and/or joint ventures. Liberty Corner, New Jersey-based Ohmeda has $800 mil. in annual sales, three-fifths of which is in the U.S.