Managers depart Philips PACS unit

Two top managers in the Philips picture archiving and communicationssystems business resigned late last year. Philips remains stronglycommitted to its CommView PACS joint venture with AT&T despitethe departures, said Janet Collins, director of corporate communications.The executives who tendered their resignations were Anthony Lombardo,director of Philips' international PACS business, and AnthonyLandau, domestic PACS director.

The top-level resignations could presage PACS policy changesat the Shelton, CT, headquarters of Philips Medical Systems NorthAmerica, however.

"Senior management here is evaluating the management structurefor PACS," Collins said. "The market has opened andmatured enough for us to focus more on the profitability sideas opposed to development and introduction (of new PACS technology),which has been our focus over the past few years."

Such a move would be in line with a worldwide restructuringeffort under way at NV Philips, the parent company of PhilipsMedical Systems International of the Netherlands. All PMSI businessunits, including PACS, will be more strongly focused on profitability,according to Hans van Bree, president and CEO (SCAN 11/7/90).

Philips expects to appoint new management to the PACS businessin the first quarter of this year, Collins said.

Lombardo left Philips to join Sony Medical in Park Ridge, NJ,as vice president of sales and marketing. Landau has taken a positionwith a company outside the medical imaging field, Collins said.

BRIEFLY NOTED:

• Mediq of Pennsauken, NJ, has retained Smith Barney tohelp reshape the diversified health-care company and former mobileimaging services leader. "Non-core" businesses willbe spun off in the process of narrowing Mediq's health-care focus,the company said.

Although Mediq sold its MRI and CT fleet to MTI nearly threeyears ago (SCAN 4/13/88), the firm still provides mobile imagingservices in ultrasound and other modalities and has a fixed-siteimaging services business. It also runs a third-party scannerservice company, Mediq Equipment and Maintenance Services of Arlington,TX.

MEMS is not one of the units targeted for spin-off, said aMediq spokesperson. There have been rumors in the industry thatthe maintenance business is for sale.

• Amerisys did not go to the auction block as expected lastmonth (SCAN 12/26/90). The formerly dealer-owned x-ray companyhas apparently been placed in involuntary bankruptcy, which hasprevented the sale of its assets.

• GV Medical of Minneapolis laid off half of its 60-personstaff this month. The laser angioplasty developer is in the processof developing a second-generation laser system (SCAN 2/26/90),following sluggish clinical acceptance of its Lastac system. Themove will reduce annual costs by $1 million and allow GV to continueresearch into the new system, said president James R. Grabek.

GV received some positive business news this month as well.The company signed on Itoman & Co., a $4 billion Japanesetrading company, as a distributor in the Japanese market. Itomanhas placed an initial shipment of two Lastac systems, which willbe shipped this quarter, Grabek said.