Medical Team: Facilitating Collaboration

In addition to weighing in on new deals, Roberts is in charge of the company's medical team, which recognizes anyone at the company with a professional degree. Speaking by phone to Pharm Exec from the Hawaiian Eye conference on The Big Island, Roberts notes B+L has "119 MDs and ODs working for the company full-time." After surveying personnel with professional degrees—Roberts has created an interactive, electronic newsletter for medical team members—new ways for them to contribute became apparent. "We have a doctor from Croatia, who is working in our surgical division in California. B+L is expanding in Eastern Europe, and there is nothing that our doctor in California would enjoy more than to help us in Croatia—to go in there and help introduce our products, meet with doctors and be of source of knowledge and a source of connection between the company and Croatian doctors," says Roberts.

At the Hawiian Eye conference, Roberts said the femtosecond laser, a device representing "the most disruptive change in cataract surgery in 40 years," was the talk of the conference. B+L's femtosecond laser device, called Victus, was approved in the E.U. in December; Saunders says he thinks the device will be approved this year in the U.S. Alcon beat B+L to market with its LenSx femtosecond laser, but Saunders says B+L's device is capable of more than just cataract replacement surgery. "Today on the LenSx machine, doctors have to do the procedure in one room, and then wheel the patient into the OR to do the lens replacement," says Saunders. "That's true on ours as well, but we're looking for ways to solve that problem, by hanging more onto the Victus platform."

Other potential "game-changers" in the pipeline include Mapracorat in the pharmaceuticals business unit, a novel anti-inflammatory drug in development for several indications. In the vision care unit, new contact lens materials could provide a new avenue of growth. Saunders says B+L isn't going to be the biggest player in the eye care space, "but we don't want to be the biggest, because I think one of our secret weapons is our agility and nimbleness, and the speed at which we can get things done."

Saunders aspires to return B+L to the public market, but says his goal right now is to "build as strong a company as we can ... 2011 was an inflection year for us, in terms of financial performance and building a pipeline, and creating a dynamic workplace, and in some ways we have a lot more work to do. But I think we're well on our way to transforming our company."