South Pasadena : Medical Firm Stays in Town

A South Pasadena medical products company that appeared to be on its way out of town after merging with a foreign firm has decided to stay and will hire 65 employees this summer to rekindle its operations here.

The company, a local division of Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories, laid off 76 of its 120 employees two years ago as it began to phase out its research and production operation.

Abbott began producing medical diagnostic products with a German company, which Abbott officials would not name. With joint ventures in 44 countries, Abbott has 48,000 employees worldwide and nearly $8 billion in sales last year from its hospital, nutritional and diagnostic products.

Without disclosing details of its decision, an Abbott spokesman said the company recently decided it didn’t want to share operations. Officials decided to move the division that designs and produces blood testing equipment back to the United States.

The decision to return the operations to South Pasadena is, in part, based on an effort headed by the San Gabriel Valley Commerce and Cities Consortium. Abbott had considered restarting production at its South Pasadena, Santa Clara, Texas or Illinois sites.

Marco Brown, executive director of the local commerce and cities consortium, said Abbott officials chose South Pasadena primarily because its 40,000-square-foot facility on Mission Street is well-suited to the operations and because of the large, skilled labor pool in the region.

The company is accepting resumes for research and development positions, including technical jobs in biochemistry and engineering.