Orange County, CA rich and tenured history within life sciences and medical device technology spans more than 60 years and hundreds of companies all with a common goal: improving patients lives.

1896

Pacific Santiarium (today known as University of California, Irvine School of Medicine) founded in Anaheim

1931

Don Baxter Laboratories Forms in Los Angeles

1935

National Technical Laboratories formed (today known as Beckman Instruments)

1950

American Hospital Supply acquires Don Baxter Labs creating McGaw Laboratories

Allergan formed in Los Angeles

1958

Cooper Tinsley Laboratories formed

Coulter Corp formed

1960

1st heart valve is placed in a patient thanks to Miles ‘Lowell’ Edwards

Allergan moves to Santa Ana, CA

1961

Edwards Laboratories is formed in Santa Ana, CA

1964

Shiley Laboratories is formed

1964-66

University of California, Irvine campus is opened

1966

Edwards acquired by American Hospital Supply forming American Edwards

1970

Glidwell formed

1976

Pfizer acquires Shiley

1985

American Edwards acquired by Baxter Int.

1987

Masimo formed

1987

Applied Medical formed

1989

Alcon acquires CooperVision Surgical

1990

Advanced Sterilization Products formed under Ethicon Johnson&Johnson

1995

Irvine Biomedical (IBI) formed

FDA moves Los Angeles office to Irvine

1996

Micro Therapeutics formed

1997

Microvention formed

McGaw Labs acquired by Braun Melsungen AG; Beckman/Coulter merger

2000

Edwards Lifescience spun off as independent

2002

Allergan’s ophthalmic surgical and contact lens business spun off to create AMO

2004

St. Jude Medical acquires IBI

2006

Danaher acquires Sybron
Terumo acquires Microvention

2009

DeviceAlliance formed

2011

Danaher acquires Beckman

2015

Medtronic acquires Covidien for $50B

2017

Johnson & Johnson acquires AMO

2019

Actavis acquires Allergan

The Fine Print: Data resources for timeline construction include company websites, Yahoo Finance and Forbes. Timeline items in ‘red‘ indicate events which occurred outside of Orange County, CA early on which led to significant events in Orange County, CA medtech formation.