07.20.22
Rank: #8 (Last year: #8)
$16.68 Billion ($162.5B total)
Prior Fiscal: $15.44 Billion
Percentage Change: +8%
R&D Expenditure: N/A
Best FY21 Quarter: Q2 $4.31B
Latest Quarter: Q3 $3.88B
No. of Employees: 47,300 (total)
Global Headquarters: Dublin, Ohio
KEY EXECUTIVES:
Mike Kaufmann, CEO
Jason Hollar, CFO
Steve Mason, CEO, Medical Segment
Ben Brinker, President of International, Medical Segment
Robert Rajalingham, President, U.S. Medical Products and Distribution
Craig Cowman, Exec. VP, Global Sourcing
Nobody seems to know what to do with Cordis.
The cardiovascular and endovascular device maker was founded in 1957 in a garage in Miami, rapidly gaining global recognition as a pioneer in innovative products for interventional vascular medicine. In the 1970s, the company revealed the first sheath introducers with hemostasis valves to minimize blood loss during angioplasty. At the time, it ranked second only to Medtronic among America’s leading pacemaker manufacturers, as well. In the 1980s, Cordis launched a full line of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) guiding catheters. In the 1990s, the company introduced the first PTCA balloon with nylon balloon material. These innovations quickly became industry standards.
Later in the decade, Cordis’ rapid growth attracted Johnson & Johnson’s attention. Cordis merged with Johnson & Johnson Interventional Systems to form Cordis Corporation. And in 2003, J&J’s Cordis helped to earn the landmark FDA approval for the Cypher sirolimus-eluting coronary stent, the first combination drug-device product to reduce restenosis of a treated coronary artery.
Cordis remained a J&J division until March 2015, when it was sold to Cardinal Health for about $2 billion. The move drastically grew Cardinal Health’s medical products business—at the time, the company was primarily a drug wholesaler.
Almost exactly six years later (March 2021), Cardinal Health announced it was selling Cordis to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for about $1 billion.
“Our decision to divest Cordis demonstrates our disciplined approach to evaluating our portfolio and focusing our resources in our strategic growth areas where we are an advantaged owner,” Cardinal Health CEO Mike Kaufmann said in a press release announcing the sale. “Looking forward, we remain committed to our medical distribution and global medical products businesses.”
The deal was completed last August, rendering Cordis an independent company for the first time since the late 1990s.
“We are thrilled to begin this next chapter for Cordis and value the partnership with Cardinal Health through the transition,” Shar Matin, CEO of Cordis, told the press. “We believe that an independent Cordis company, combined with an innovative approach to bring differentiated products to market, will allow us to create incremental value for teammates, customers, and investors.”
Last August, Cardinal Health leveraged its expansive distribution network to boost access to Quidel’s QuickVue over-the-counter, home COVID-19 test as well as Abbott’s BinaxNow COVID-19 home rapid test. The move was made in response to last year’s burgeoning SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. Cardinal Health Laboratory Products also supplied swabs, viral transport media, and customizable specimen collection kits.
“Because we offer a full suite of solutions for COVID-19 testing, as well as vaccine transport and storage, Cardinal Health has been helping organizations and communities determine the best solutions for bringing their populations safely back out of the home since the pandemic began,” Cardinal Health Laboratory Products senior VP and GM Chris Kersi commented to the press.
Cardinal’s Medical segment also benefited from the increased demand for certain personal protective equipment (PPE) due to COVID-19 as well. The peak of the heightened demand was during Q2 and Q3 of the firm’s fiscal 2021 (ended June 30). During Q4, selling prices and customer demand shrank compared to that peak.
Fiscal 2021 medical segment revenue rose about 8% to $16.68 billion primarily within products and distribution, according to the company’s annual report. Sales increased $1.1 billion thanks to the net benefit from COVID-19. This included both the positive impact of PPE and higher volumes in the company’s laboratory business.
To cap off the year, last January, Cardinal Health launched its TotalVue Analytics, a tool that leverages predictive analytics and data to identify logistics savings and benchmarking. The tool allows visibility into shipping trends so opportunities to reduce freight costs can be identified, including inbound supplier shipments or outbound shipments from sites of care. For example, a supplier shipping too many packages overnight or a location not using the program to get shipping discounts can be identified.
April saw the release of the Navista Tech Solutions connected, point-of-service suite to help oncologists improve outcomes and costs associated with treatment as they transition to value-based care. A data-driven cost tracking tool helps measure the cost of care at the start and during the episode of care. The integrated platform includes electronic health records, a practice management system, revenue cycle management services, a patient portal, and telehealth solutions. AI-enabled population health decision support proactively identifies patients at risk of adverse events. Another AI tool identifies and matches cancer patients to clinical trials.
Not long after, Cardinal Health launched its Outcomes digital ecosystem with the aim of mitigating medication non-adherence. The digital health tool offers personalized medication therapy management, digital patient engagement, and telepharmacy to foster medication adherence. The open architecture marketplace approach allows the platform to connect clinical services, patient engagement, and billing to optimize pharmacy workflow. The digital ecosystem powering Outcomes supports a 23 million-member patient network and over 60,000 pharmacies across the world.
November saw the rollout of the company’s WaveMark supply management and workflow solutions for clinical labs. WaveMark’s supply automation aims to ease the staffing burden on the clinical lab workforce strained from retirements and increased testing demand—especially in the still-lingering COVID-19 era—by automating laborious and manual inventory-tracking tasks like ordering supplies and identifying product location and lot numbers as needed. It also proactively provides alerts for recalled, expired, and at-risk supplies. According to a company study, WaveMark users saved seven hours weekly in the first three months of use, amounting to about 357 hours a year.
Last August, the company issued both a voluntary correction and initiated a nationwide recall. Cardinal Health recalled about 267 million Monoject Flush prefilled saline syringes because the products were found to reintroduce air into the syringe after the air had been expelled. This caused risk of air injection into blood vessels and potential for air embolism, which can cause serious adverse outcomes or death.
The voluntary correction notice was for the Argyle UVC insertion tray containing Safety Scalpel N11. The product is used to insert an umbilical venous catheter into the umbilical artery or vein of neonates. The company issued the notice to make users aware of Safety Scalpel N11’s full instructions for use, particularly its permanent locking feature. Cardinal said the scalpel functions as intended but there’s a risk for procedural delay due to unintentional permanent locking. This potential delay can result in death in the high-risk neonate population.
Two reports of death had been received at the time, but the causes were not established as the result of the permanently closed and locked scalpel.
In October, the FDA awarded Cardinal a $750,000 contract to implement an 18-month real-world evidence (RWE) study to advance the agency’s efforts to boost RWE’s applicability in regulatory decision-making. The funding will support “Assessment of a Novel Methodology for Endpoints Assessing Response to Lymphoma Treatment in Real-World Studies,” which will evaluate accuracy of real-world data (RWD) for lymphoma tumor response compared to blinded independent central review, the gold standard in randomized clinical trials. Within this research, Cardinal will collaborate with the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence to assess tumor response in the clinical care setting.
$16.68 Billion ($162.5B total)
Prior Fiscal: $15.44 Billion
Percentage Change: +8%
R&D Expenditure: N/A
Best FY21 Quarter: Q2 $4.31B
Latest Quarter: Q3 $3.88B
No. of Employees: 47,300 (total)
Global Headquarters: Dublin, Ohio
KEY EXECUTIVES:
Mike Kaufmann, CEO
Jason Hollar, CFO
Steve Mason, CEO, Medical Segment
Ben Brinker, President of International, Medical Segment
Robert Rajalingham, President, U.S. Medical Products and Distribution
Craig Cowman, Exec. VP, Global Sourcing
Nobody seems to know what to do with Cordis.
The cardiovascular and endovascular device maker was founded in 1957 in a garage in Miami, rapidly gaining global recognition as a pioneer in innovative products for interventional vascular medicine. In the 1970s, the company revealed the first sheath introducers with hemostasis valves to minimize blood loss during angioplasty. At the time, it ranked second only to Medtronic among America’s leading pacemaker manufacturers, as well. In the 1980s, Cordis launched a full line of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) guiding catheters. In the 1990s, the company introduced the first PTCA balloon with nylon balloon material. These innovations quickly became industry standards.
Later in the decade, Cordis’ rapid growth attracted Johnson & Johnson’s attention. Cordis merged with Johnson & Johnson Interventional Systems to form Cordis Corporation. And in 2003, J&J’s Cordis helped to earn the landmark FDA approval for the Cypher sirolimus-eluting coronary stent, the first combination drug-device product to reduce restenosis of a treated coronary artery.
Cordis remained a J&J division until March 2015, when it was sold to Cardinal Health for about $2 billion. The move drastically grew Cardinal Health’s medical products business—at the time, the company was primarily a drug wholesaler.
Almost exactly six years later (March 2021), Cardinal Health announced it was selling Cordis to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for about $1 billion.
“Our decision to divest Cordis demonstrates our disciplined approach to evaluating our portfolio and focusing our resources in our strategic growth areas where we are an advantaged owner,” Cardinal Health CEO Mike Kaufmann said in a press release announcing the sale. “Looking forward, we remain committed to our medical distribution and global medical products businesses.”
The deal was completed last August, rendering Cordis an independent company for the first time since the late 1990s.
“We are thrilled to begin this next chapter for Cordis and value the partnership with Cardinal Health through the transition,” Shar Matin, CEO of Cordis, told the press. “We believe that an independent Cordis company, combined with an innovative approach to bring differentiated products to market, will allow us to create incremental value for teammates, customers, and investors.”
Last August, Cardinal Health leveraged its expansive distribution network to boost access to Quidel’s QuickVue over-the-counter, home COVID-19 test as well as Abbott’s BinaxNow COVID-19 home rapid test. The move was made in response to last year’s burgeoning SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. Cardinal Health Laboratory Products also supplied swabs, viral transport media, and customizable specimen collection kits.
“Because we offer a full suite of solutions for COVID-19 testing, as well as vaccine transport and storage, Cardinal Health has been helping organizations and communities determine the best solutions for bringing their populations safely back out of the home since the pandemic began,” Cardinal Health Laboratory Products senior VP and GM Chris Kersi commented to the press.
Cardinal’s Medical segment also benefited from the increased demand for certain personal protective equipment (PPE) due to COVID-19 as well. The peak of the heightened demand was during Q2 and Q3 of the firm’s fiscal 2021 (ended June 30). During Q4, selling prices and customer demand shrank compared to that peak.
Fiscal 2021 medical segment revenue rose about 8% to $16.68 billion primarily within products and distribution, according to the company’s annual report. Sales increased $1.1 billion thanks to the net benefit from COVID-19. This included both the positive impact of PPE and higher volumes in the company’s laboratory business.
To cap off the year, last January, Cardinal Health launched its TotalVue Analytics, a tool that leverages predictive analytics and data to identify logistics savings and benchmarking. The tool allows visibility into shipping trends so opportunities to reduce freight costs can be identified, including inbound supplier shipments or outbound shipments from sites of care. For example, a supplier shipping too many packages overnight or a location not using the program to get shipping discounts can be identified.
April saw the release of the Navista Tech Solutions connected, point-of-service suite to help oncologists improve outcomes and costs associated with treatment as they transition to value-based care. A data-driven cost tracking tool helps measure the cost of care at the start and during the episode of care. The integrated platform includes electronic health records, a practice management system, revenue cycle management services, a patient portal, and telehealth solutions. AI-enabled population health decision support proactively identifies patients at risk of adverse events. Another AI tool identifies and matches cancer patients to clinical trials.
Not long after, Cardinal Health launched its Outcomes digital ecosystem with the aim of mitigating medication non-adherence. The digital health tool offers personalized medication therapy management, digital patient engagement, and telepharmacy to foster medication adherence. The open architecture marketplace approach allows the platform to connect clinical services, patient engagement, and billing to optimize pharmacy workflow. The digital ecosystem powering Outcomes supports a 23 million-member patient network and over 60,000 pharmacies across the world.
November saw the rollout of the company’s WaveMark supply management and workflow solutions for clinical labs. WaveMark’s supply automation aims to ease the staffing burden on the clinical lab workforce strained from retirements and increased testing demand—especially in the still-lingering COVID-19 era—by automating laborious and manual inventory-tracking tasks like ordering supplies and identifying product location and lot numbers as needed. It also proactively provides alerts for recalled, expired, and at-risk supplies. According to a company study, WaveMark users saved seven hours weekly in the first three months of use, amounting to about 357 hours a year.
Last August, the company issued both a voluntary correction and initiated a nationwide recall. Cardinal Health recalled about 267 million Monoject Flush prefilled saline syringes because the products were found to reintroduce air into the syringe after the air had been expelled. This caused risk of air injection into blood vessels and potential for air embolism, which can cause serious adverse outcomes or death.
The voluntary correction notice was for the Argyle UVC insertion tray containing Safety Scalpel N11. The product is used to insert an umbilical venous catheter into the umbilical artery or vein of neonates. The company issued the notice to make users aware of Safety Scalpel N11’s full instructions for use, particularly its permanent locking feature. Cardinal said the scalpel functions as intended but there’s a risk for procedural delay due to unintentional permanent locking. This potential delay can result in death in the high-risk neonate population.
Two reports of death had been received at the time, but the causes were not established as the result of the permanently closed and locked scalpel.
In October, the FDA awarded Cardinal a $750,000 contract to implement an 18-month real-world evidence (RWE) study to advance the agency’s efforts to boost RWE’s applicability in regulatory decision-making. The funding will support “Assessment of a Novel Methodology for Endpoints Assessing Response to Lymphoma Treatment in Real-World Studies,” which will evaluate accuracy of real-world data (RWD) for lymphoma tumor response compared to blinded independent central review, the gold standard in randomized clinical trials. Within this research, Cardinal will collaborate with the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence to assess tumor response in the clinical care setting.