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BOULDER-A longtime Boulder medical devices company had two major changes in the past couple of months, but instead of reeling the company is rockin' and rollin'.
Valleylab, a Boulder fixture since 1967, is owned by Tyco International (NYSE: TYC; BSX: TYC) as part of its Tyco Healthcare division.
On Jan. 13 Tyco announced it was splitting into three separate, publicly traded companies - Tyco Healthcare, Tyco Electronics and Tyco Fire & security and Engineered Products & Services.
The announcement came shortly after the arrival of new Valleylab President Kevin Seifert late last year when former President Scott Drake was promoted to group president of the respiratory division of Mallinckrodt, another Tyco Healthcare company.
These changes won't affect the company's forward-looking plans for 2006, said Scott Peairs, Valleylab's vice president of marketing.
Much new activity this year is around microwave ablation, a technology that destroys cancer lesions by heating them from the inside out. In July 2005 Tyco Healthcare purchased Vivant Medical Inc., a developer of microwave ablation technology, for $66 million cash and up to about $35 million in the future based on achieving certain milestones.
Clinical trials are under way, and the company hopes to commercialize the technology this year, said Donna Ford-Serbu, director of marketing for ablative therapies.
"There's a lot of excitement for this new technology," Ford-Serbu said. The types of cancer being targeted include lung, liver, kidney and...