Guidant Campus Is Expected to Remain

Guidant Corp. Chief Executive Ron Dollens said Monday that he didn’t expect a proposed acquisition by Johnson & Johnson to hamper his company’s plans to expand its operations in Temecula.

Guidant employs about 2,700 people in Temecula where it manufactures bare-metal stents, devices used to prop open newly unclogged arteries. The fate of the southwestern Riverside County campus was called into question last week after J&J; said it was buying Guidant for $25.4 billion. Because J&J; makes the more advanced, drug-coated stents, analysts speculated that the plant might be sold if regulators raised antitrust concerns about the deal.

In an interview, Dollens said he reassured employees during a visit to Temecula on Friday that the facility is viewed as an important part of the transaction.

Dollens also suggested plans to expand the Temecula operation -- proposed by Guidant prior to last week’s announcement -- appear to be on track and that the plant eventually may produce drug-coated stents.

“I have very little concern our presence will not only continue, but most likely be enhanced” in Temecula, said Dollens, 58, who is scheduled to retire from Indianapolis-based Guidant after the deal is completed.

As for antitrust concerns, Dollens said he was confident regulators would clear the deal, because of what he described as growing competition in the drug-coated stent market. He predicted Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic Inc. eventually will join J&J; and Boston Scientific Corp. in manufacturing drug-coated stents.

Guidant and J&J; have agreed that certain assets could be sold if necessary to get the deal done, Dollens said, but indicated that an order by regulators to sell the Temecula plant could scotch the transaction.

“The capabilities that reside in Temecula have to continue to reside there for the transaction to go forward,” he said.

A spokesman for J&J; declined to comment Monday on the company’s plans for Guidant’s Temecula campus. The deal is scheduled to close in the third quarter of 2005.

Guidant shares rose 13 cents to $71.75 on Monday, while J&J;’s stock dipped 51 cents to $63.07, both on the New York Stock Exchange. J&J;’s stock-and-cash offer is valued at $76 a share.