Orange County has developed into a center for innovative eye-care companies, with help from the business-boosting group OCTANe, today’s New York Times says.
In the article “If It’s Eye Care Technology, This Must Be Orange County,” business columnist James Flanigan tells a brief history of events leading to the creation of about 310 local biomedical firms, including “several dozen developing implanted lenses, known as intraocular lenses, for use in cataract surgery, laser surgery for vision correction and instruments to alleviate glaucoma and other eye diseases.” He writes:
“This area has the highest concentration of ophthalmic industry in the world,” said Dr. Roger F. Steinert, professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine, which is closely involved in the Octane community effort. Every Thursday, Luis Vasquez of Octane goes to the Eye Institute at the university and listens as medical researchers tell him of ideas they have for businesses. Then he refers the ideas to the venture capital investors and entrepreneurial businesspeople who serve on Octane’s 27-member board.
“There is a remarkable community here,” said Dr. Steinert, who is helping to raise funds for a $50 million Eye Institute building at the university. The building will be named for Gavin S. Herbert, founder and former chairman of Allergan, the large pharmaceutical products company that first developed anti-allergy eye drops 60 years ago in Los Angeles. Allergan moved its headquarters to Irvine in 1971. Read the rest of this entry »
Computer simulations, minimally invasive surgery, and computer-assisted robotic assistants are already making operating rooms safer and doctors more efficient, according to panelists at today’s New Frontiers for Surgery conference in Irvine.
Expect computers to change the way surgeons operate and how they’re trained, says Dr. 
Heart-valve whiz Stan Rowe, corporate vice president at 
Here’s the conference’s description of the topic, “Future innovation, emerging trends and white spaces with the 21st century operating room”:
The local innovation-boosting group OCTANe has opened its new 
Social networking promoter and Web-site optimizer Elmer Thomas last night urged dozens of local businesspeople and potential entrepreneurs to leap into social networking as a business-promotion technique, if they haven’t already.