AMO opens corporate headquarters in Santa Ana

From left to right: Michael Metzler, President & CEO, City of Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce; Patricia McGuigan, Mayor Pro Tem, City of Santa Ana; James V. Mazzo, President & CEO, Advanced Medical Optics; Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, U.S. House of Representatives; Assemblyman Lou Correa, California State Assembly, 69th District

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Advanced Medical Optics officially opened its new corporate headquarters here on Friday with local media, government representatives, employees, members of the board of directors, AMO’s global management team, ophthalmologists and Gavin Herbert, founder of Allergan, in attendance.

During the dedication ceremony, James V. Mazzo, president and CEO of AMO, spoke about what the new facility means.

“A building is a building, but it represents a lot of what is inside of it,” said Mr. Mazzo. “I think what differentiates AMO is the people.”

AMO has been operating as a separate company since July 1 when Allergan spun off AMO and it began trading on its own on the New York Stock Exchange.

“We [AMO and Allergan] were two inherently different businesses — a pharmaceutical business and a medical device business. We believe that the customer is the most important aspect of the business and the customer saw these as two separate businesses,” said Mr. Mazzo. “With more than $500 million in revenue, [AMO] is not a small company, this is not a new company, this is a company that is now able to focus on nothing but medical devices. If you are able to focus, you win.”

The current AMO product line includes ophthalmic surgical devices and contact lens care products. According to Mr. Mazzo, globally AMO ranks second in the cataract business and second in the contact lens business. AMO has manufacturing operations in China and Puerto Rico and research and development facilities in Japan, UK and California.

“We are physically everywhere, we participate in every major market directly, we have over 2,100 employees who do help us in both our R&D and sales and marketing,” Mr. Mazzo said.

In order to “stay the leader,” Mr. Mazzo said that AMO plans to spend more time, revenue and energy on research and development, which means hiring more people.

“This is really where you are going to see the majority of difference,” Mr. Mazzo said. “Our history of innovation is proven. We have been the first in technology, in the foldable IOL, in phacoemulsification. We develop innovations to drive practitioner productivity and better patient outcomes. Our commitment to this area [Santa Ana] and our commitment to the industry is to continue to be the innovator.”

The attendance of Gavin Herbert, founder and CEO of Allergan, highlighted AMO’s history.

“More than 50 years ago a man by the name of Gavin Herbert created a company called Allergan,” said Mr. Mazzo. “Mr. Gavin Herbert has been a driving force behind the success of both Allergan and AMO for more than 5 decades. I am very honored to have him here with us today. It means a lot to myself as I joined Allergan more than 22 years ago because of a person named Gavin Herbert.”

“When we first moved to Santa Ana we were doing a million in sales in 1961,” said Mr. Herbert. “It is a return to Santa Ana for this group.”