Lens care is on its last leg

After a year of "mandatory" Saturdays and many of those days with very little to do, the end is near. What other company pays people 1 1/2 times pay to watch TV all day? Line efficiency and scrap are something the new Managers and supvs could care less about. Overtime for unnecessary "mandatory" meetings every week. When new supvs tell senior operators how to run a line you know our days are numbered. Zspharma is stealing good manufacturing talent from Alcon, good for them bad for Alcon.

 

I read somewhere that it may be a french company buying out lens care, just can't remember where I read it. No company could be as wasteful as FWN manufacturing and survive. Maybe the french can run it better? It's also true that as more Americans go to daily disposable lens there becomes less and less of a market for the lens cleaning solutions. Lens care products are more of a commodity than a medical device. Luckily developing countries still demand these products.

 

http://cafepharma.com/boards/threads/what-is-happening-in-january.587466/page-2

 

maybe Valeant Pharmaceuticals?

 

Recipharm, a contract development and manufacturing organization, is currently in discussions with Alcon, the eye-care business of Novartis, and has reached agreement in principle to enter into a long-term manufacturing agreement for a range of ophthalmology products. As part of this arrangement, Recipharm will also acquire Alcon’s manufacturing facility located in Kaysersberg, France

Sounds like it may be Recipharm?

 

thats only one location, for that deal, at least the way I am reading. I read more on Valeant Pharma and they got some huge legal issues right now.

 

Valeant: Based On The Novartis Settlement, Philidor Legal Exposure Could Be $860MM

Nov. 27, 2015 11:24 AM • VRX

Summary

• Novartis was accused of paying doctors kickbacks for prescribing their drugs. They settled with the government for $390MM.
• Based on the Novartis settlement, Philidor's regulatory/legal exposure could be about $860MM.
• Worst-case scenario is that Valeant could be on the hook for Philidor's exposure.
• An $860MM exposure could cause liquidity strain and/or a breach of Valeant's debt covenants.
• Avoid VRX.

 

Not sure what your talking about, workers watching TV during overtime Saturday's but think your exaggerating, well about people sitting around on 1.5 X overtime pay. And I'm not in mgt so I'm not taking up for mgt or supervision but they are runningfilling the crap out of that Clearcare H2O2 peroxide cleaner, and the profit on it must be tremendous..even if you filled say 200k units on a sat/sun (both days 12 hr shifts do you see how much profit is in this peroxide cleaner?)

 

It could be Recipharm or Valeant, really doesn't matter I suppose. There is more financial news about Recipharm though. Either way, lens care will most likely be gone soon. That's a whole lot of jobs @ FWN no matter how you look at it (supvs, managers, operators, engineers, warehouse personnel, optechs, compounders, maintenance). But I wonder, what would they put in the FWN building? Surgical could probably use some of that space but not all of it.

 

Even the Fort Worth star telegram mentions the possible sale of lens care.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article46727780.html

 

Not sure what your talking about, workers watching TV during overtime Saturday's but think your exaggerating, well about people sitting around on 1.5 X overtime pay. And I'm not in mgt so I'm not taking up for mgt or supervision but they are runningfilling the crap out of that Clearcare H2O2 peroxide cleaner, and the profit on it must be tremendous..even if you filled say 200k units on a sat/sun (both days 12 hr shifts do you see how much profit is in this peroxide cleaner?)

The TV thing is an exaggeration but people sitting around at 1.5x is not. I don't think Clearcare is going to save lens care, Bloomberg and even the Fort Worth star-telegram mention the possible sale of lens care. The whole point is that if they are talking about selling lens care, more than likely it will happen whether we like it or not. Upper management sees no future in lens care and if that's not a nail in the coffin, I don't know what is.

 

From Bloomberg:
A slump in the contact lens care business contributed to curtailing growth at Alcon in the second quarter, leading to Novartis missing analysts’ estimates for profit in the three-month period. Novartis is doing a “deep analysis” of Alcon’s businesses, and in January will report on a plan “to get this business back to a decent growth rate,” Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez told analysts and investors in October.

“With the market shift to daily disposable lenses, Novartis will be questioning whether the lens care business is core or unnecessary,” said Nick Turner, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities Ltd. who rates Novartis “neutral.” “On the one hand it is high margin and will be a loss to division cash flow, but if Alcon continues to be a drag on group performance, its days could be numbered.”
A representative for Novartis declined to comment.

Revenue at Novartis’s contact care business — which sells products to clean, store and moisturize lenses — fell 7.4 percent to $646 million last year. A sale of the business may generate as much as $1.6 billion, according to Fabian Wenner, an analyst with Kepler Cheuvreux in Zurich.

 

You gotta love it when they say, "A representative for Novartis declined to comment." You can't tell me somethings not gonna happen.

 

You gotta love it when they say, "A representative for Novartis declined to comment." You can't tell me somethings not gonna happen.

Yep, sounds like the cat got out of the bag!

 

And lens care got leaked to the paper because it's the biggest and most visible. But you know EVERYTHING is on the table.

 

True. Anything could happen. Some are more worried than others. It's better to be informed so that if or when it happens, you're not in a state of shock.

 

Revenue at Novartis’s contact care business — which sells products to clean, store and moisturize lenses — fell 7.4 percent to $646 million last year.
7.4 percent is a big drop for any business. Maybe if Clearcare is ramped up even more, it will help. I just don't think 1 product will save the day. Had to laugh at the TV thing though, too funny...

 

Sell juice business and get rid of the cash cow? How to pay for rebates, company cars, all those expensive reps? Ooh. I get it.

 

I think $1.6 billion would fatten the hell out of someone's pocket. That's the amount they're saying lens care could sell for.

 

As far as revenue is concerned, lens care generates a small percentage compared to pharma and surg.. If lens care is losing money like the financial news is reporting, they'll sale for sure.