Company Was Acquired by Baxter Travenol in 1987 : James Sweeney Resigns as Caremark Inc.’s Chairman

James M. Sweeney has resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of Newport Beach-based Caremark Inc., a nationwide provider of home health-care services that was acquired last summer by pharmaceutical giant Baxter Travenol Laboratories Inc.

Sweeney’s resignation is effective March 1, exactly nine years after he founded the health-care company formerly known as Home Health Care of America.

“It’s like having a hit play on Broadway for nine years,” Sweeney said Friday, “and now I’m ready to do something else.”

Sweeney, 45, described his relationship with Deerfield, Ill.-based Baxter Travenol as “very positive.” He said he decided to resign because he wants to start up a new business in the health-care field.

“My real strength is in the start-up and entrepreneurial phases of companies,” he said.

While he did not elaborate on the kind of business he planned to start, Sweeney said he had signed a non-competing agreement with Baxter Travenol.

Sweeney said Peter Smith, acting president of Caremark in Baxter Travenol’s Deerfield office, would assume his duties as chief executive officer of the company. Baxter Travenol officials declined to comment on Sweeney’s resignation and replacement.

Caremark provides in-home intravenous treatment for people requiring daily or long-term intravenous treatments.

The company was acquired by Baxter Travenol for about $550 million in common stock on Aug. 3, 1987. The Illinois firm is a leading manufacturer of health-care products as well as a provider of in-home health service.

Sweeney said the merger was beneficial for both companies, especially Caremark. “The integration makes it a much stronger business,” he said.

Shortly after the takeover, Baxter Travenol reduced the number of employees in Caremark’s Newport Beach office from 200 to 60. Sweeney said employees were offered jobs at Baxter Travenol’s headquarters in Deerfield, but the majority declined to move.

Larry Selwitz, an analyst with the Los Angeles firm of Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards, said Sweeney’s announcement was not “really surprising when you consider that Caremark is not an independent company anymore. If there is any strategic planning going on it would be done through Baxter.”