Medtronic to Phase Out Anaheim Plant

Medtronic Inc. said Tuesday it plans to close its Anaheim plant within two years, eliminating most of the 560 jobs to avoid duplicating work at another site that the company has acquired.

Employees learned of the closure on Monday, the same day Medtronic completed its acquisition of the Minnesota-based Avecor Cardiovascular Inc.

The Anaheim and Avecor facilities make devices that supply oxygen to blood that is rerouted outside of the body during heart surgery. Medtronic will phase out the Anaheim plant and continue making blood oxygenation systems at Avecor’s larger, more modern plant in Brooklyn Park, Minn., spokesman Dick Reid said.

Only about 50 employees in Anaheim will be offered jobs elsewhere, the company said.

Reid said he doubts that the news of the Anaheim plant’s closure came as a surprise to workers, since they were aware that the company had purchased the new plant. Medtronic has operated at the Anaheim site since 1986.

Officials at the local plant declined to comment.

Medtronic also has a plant in Santa Ana. There will be no changes at that facility, which makes heart valves, Reid said.

Minneapolis-based Medtronic once made only pacemakers, but has diversified in response to consolidation in the health-care industry.

Medtronic has purchased four companies in the last eight months, and now has four divisions that manufacture a variety of devices.