Johnson & Johnson Completes $4B AMO Acquisition

[AdminWolf]

This morning Johnson & Johnson completed their AMO acquisition!

I got to speak with Ashley McEvoy, Company Group Chairman, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Medical Devices for a few minutes about the deal. Listen here:

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[AdminWolf]

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Feb. 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced it has completed the acquisition of Abbott Medical Optics (AMO), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abbott. The all-cash $4.325 billion acquisition was originally announced Sept. 16, 2016, and includes ophthalmic products in three areas of patient care: cataract surgery, laser refractive surgery and consumer eye health. These product lines will now join with the world-leading ACUVUE® Brand Contact Lenses business, and the combined organization will operate under the brand name Johnson & Johnson Vision (J&J Vision).

"With the addition of AMO's world-renowned ophthalmic surgery business, J&J Vision is poised to become a world leader in eye health," said Ashley McEvoy, Company Group Chairman, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Medical Devices. "Sight is precious, it's the sense people fear losing the most. By bringing on board surgical solutions that are supported by the resources and global reach of Johnson & Johnson, we can improve and restore sight for more patients across the globe."

At nearly $70 billion, eye health is one of the largest, fastest-growing and most underserved segments in healthcare today.

 

[Jonathan Warner]

Now they will finally have their own CL solutions.

 

[Adam Wolf Farkas]

Now they will finally have their own CL solutions.

Indeed. As you can hear in the interview though, the play was bigger than solutions -- AMO has a big surgical side.

Should be interesting!

 

[Charles A McBride]

Indeed. As you can hear in the interview though, the play was bigger than solutions -- AMO has a big surgical side.

Should be interesting!

I've been wondering if the numerous cases I officially submitted to AMO regarding one of their IOLs will get swept under the carpet.

 

[AdminWolf]

I've been wondering if the numerous cases I officially submitted to AMO regarding one of their IOLs will get swept under the carpet.

Charlie -- did they give you any feedback on the submissions?

It looks to me like most of the folks at each company are staying where they are, so I tend to think something like that wouldn't fall through the cracks! If you'd like to start a new thread in the clinical forum, we can keep the topic at the fore.

thx
adam

 

[Charles A McBride]

Charlie -- did they give you any feedback on the submissions?

It looks to me like most of the folks at each company are staying where they are, so I tend to think something like that wouldn't fall through the cracks! If you'd like to start a new thread in the clinical forum, we can keep the topic at the fore.

thx
adam

Haven't head anything. I think it's been about a year. If their email addresses are the same I could give the individuals that were following thing a whomp on the side of the head.

 

[Jonathan Warner]

I've been wondering if the numerous cases I officially submitted to AMO regarding one of their IOLs will get swept under the carpet.

Charlie,

Could you elaborate?

 

[Charles A McBride]

Charlie,

Could you elaborate?

My go to cataract surgeon uses AMO IOLs. I noticed one day that sometimes the IOLs would have a hazy appearance to them, almost milky, and uniformly throughout the haptic. Once I started paying attention, it turns out a lot of these IOLs have this milky appearance, sometimes mild and sometimes rather obvious. It doesn't affect acuity at all and doesn't seem to matter in any way. It's just odd.

 

[h.c. jang]

Now they will finally have their own CL solutions.

AMO had a contact lens solution?

I wonder if my Vistakon rep is going to be bringing in Blink Revitalens.

 

[stan hallock]

If the IOL is hazy there will be light scatter and therefore a veiling glare on the entire field at night and during the day a subtle loss of contrast sensitivity function. It may not affect visual acuity but we all know that VA is not the only thing involved in vision.

Thanks for mentioning this here and do report this up the 'chains of command'.....if you think about it AMO has done their level best to put your report in a filing cabinet somewhere and not be in a big hurry to take it to the FDA or anywhere else.

The FDA has a reporting service > go there yourself....investigate what can be done through the USP [the U.S. Pharmacopeia]. Report to the US Surgeon General's Office. Report to your State's Health Commissioner.......what?......you want your State's Medicaid monies possibly paying for a defective medical device?....they certainly wouldn't.

Report to your US Congressman.....and in any report be sure to include a list of what other entities you're also informing. I dealt with this issue years ago involving a defective contact lens issue......what pretty much happened after the fact was a lot of Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes > "I know nothing!" < though I did get one person off the record to clearly explain what was the problem and just how it came to be.

The best example of the CL problem was when a Patient of mine came in and explain that their Doc was working them up for a pituitary brain tumor because one symptom of such can be blurred vision....when I got that specific CL [no longer made] off their eye and changed brands, they saw clearly again....so....end of the other Doc's work up.....but for a while can you imagine how scared the Patient was ???