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Boston Scientific CEO Peter M. Nicholas Gave Doctors New Tools
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(David P.)
May 28, 2022, 12:34:31 PM5/28/22
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Boston Scientific CEO Peter M. Nicholas Gave Doctors New Tools
By James R. Hagerty, May 18, 2022, WSJ
Peter M. Nicholas married into a career at the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., where he rose to general manager in Europe before returning to the U.S. in the late 1970s.
He was in his late 30s and felt an itch to run his own show. That’s when he met John Abele, a neighbor in Concord, Mass. Mr. Abele ran a tiny company called Medi-Tech Inc. making catheters, thin tubes inserted into the body to find or fix problems.
Both men saw enormous potential for devices used in what became known as minimally invasive procedures to avoid major surgeries and hold down medical costs. “You’re not taking the body apart in order to fix it,” as Mr. Abele put it.
The two men made an offer to Medi-Tech’s owner, pledged their homes to secure financing and in 1979 bought the firm, which became Boston Scientific Corp. Through research and dozens of acquisitions, it became a powerhouse in medical devices.
Building the company required financial engineering and finesse in sorting out regulatory problems. Perhaps more important, it involved persuading doctors that new tools were safe and effective, and overcoming objections from surgeons, who would no longer be needed for some procedures.
They won those debates partly by organizing videotaped demonstrations of new medical procedures, during which doctors were encouraged to ask questions and make comments. It was important to show these videos live so no one could claim that glitches and goofs had been edited out. Borrowing from TV sports, they included instant replays. “We made sure that the critics were invited,” Mr. Abele said.
Mr. Nicholas said the alternative to the new technology was “major surgery, which was often worse than the disease itself.”
As less-invasive procedures proliferated, the two founders made their fortunes. Mr. Nicholas served as chief executive officer until 1999 and chairman until 2016.
Mr. Nicholas died May 14, two days before his 81st birthday, at his home in Boca Grande, Fla. He had been under treatment for a rare form of lung cancer.
Peter Michael Nicholas was born May 16, 1941, in Portsmouth, N.H. His parents were Greek immigrants. His father was a career Navy officer who commanded submarines. Because of his career, the family moved frequently and lived in Denmark and Puerto Rico, among other places.
Peter Nicholas wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy but failed an eye test. So he enrolled at Duke University, where he majored in economics and met Ruth Virginia “Ginny” Lilly. A descendant of Eli Lilly, the founder of the drugmaker, she was studying English. They married in 1964.
He served in the Navy as a communications officer in the mid-1960s before earning an M.B.A. degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and joining Lilly.
Boston Scientific went public in 1992 and used its newfound financial flexibility to go on an acquisition binge. One of the most important deals was the 1995 purchase of SciMed Life Systems Inc. SciMed made angioplasty balloons, wires with inflatable tips used to unclog arteries.
Boston Scientific had a sensational hit in 2004 with the launch of its Taxus Express stents, coated with a drug to prevent scar tissue from growing inside arteries.
In 2006, Boston Scientific prevailed in a takeover battle with Johnson & Johnson to acquire Guidant Corp., a maker of implantable defibrillators, for around $28 billion.
Boston Scientific’s hard-nosed tactics sometimes led to trouble with regulators and partners.
In 2005, the company agreed to pay $74 million to settle federal prosecutors’ civil charges that it knowingly shipped flawed stents in 1998. Boston Scientific denied wrongdoing. The company also agreed in 2005 to pay Medinol Ltd. of Israel $750 million to settle a long-festering legal dispute over their partnership. Medinol had accused Boston Scientific of stealing the Israeli company’s technology.
Mr. Nicholas bought a series of used yachts and relished the details of restoring and refitting them. In 2011, when Boston Scientific poached Mike Mahoney from Johnson & Johnson and hired him as CEO, his final job interview was on Mr. Nicholas’s boat in Newport, R.I.
Mr. Nicholas also collected nautical paintings. He and his wife were major donors to Duke, where their gifts supported environmental studies and he served as chairman of the board of trustees.
His survivors include his wife, three children, seven grandchildren and a brother, Nick Nicholas, a former co-CEO of Time Warner Inc.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/boston-scientific-ceo-peter-m-nicholas-gave-doctors-new-tools-11652884086
By James R. Hagerty, May 18, 2022, WSJ
Peter M. Nicholas married into a career at the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., where he rose to general manager in Europe before returning to the U.S. in the late 1970s.
He was in his late 30s and felt an itch to run his own show. That’s when he met John Abele, a neighbor in Concord, Mass. Mr. Abele ran a tiny company called Medi-Tech Inc. making catheters, thin tubes inserted into the body to find or fix problems.
Both men saw enormous potential for devices used in what became known as minimally invasive procedures to avoid major surgeries and hold down medical costs. “You’re not taking the body apart in order to fix it,” as Mr. Abele put it.
The two men made an offer to Medi-Tech’s owner, pledged their homes to secure financing and in 1979 bought the firm, which became Boston Scientific Corp. Through research and dozens of acquisitions, it became a powerhouse in medical devices.
Building the company required financial engineering and finesse in sorting out regulatory problems. Perhaps more important, it involved persuading doctors that new tools were safe and effective, and overcoming objections from surgeons, who would no longer be needed for some procedures.
They won those debates partly by organizing videotaped demonstrations of new medical procedures, during which doctors were encouraged to ask questions and make comments. It was important to show these videos live so no one could claim that glitches and goofs had been edited out. Borrowing from TV sports, they included instant replays. “We made sure that the critics were invited,” Mr. Abele said.
Mr. Nicholas said the alternative to the new technology was “major surgery, which was often worse than the disease itself.”
As less-invasive procedures proliferated, the two founders made their fortunes. Mr. Nicholas served as chief executive officer until 1999 and chairman until 2016.
Mr. Nicholas died May 14, two days before his 81st birthday, at his home in Boca Grande, Fla. He had been under treatment for a rare form of lung cancer.
Peter Michael Nicholas was born May 16, 1941, in Portsmouth, N.H. His parents were Greek immigrants. His father was a career Navy officer who commanded submarines. Because of his career, the family moved frequently and lived in Denmark and Puerto Rico, among other places.
Peter Nicholas wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy but failed an eye test. So he enrolled at Duke University, where he majored in economics and met Ruth Virginia “Ginny” Lilly. A descendant of Eli Lilly, the founder of the drugmaker, she was studying English. They married in 1964.
He served in the Navy as a communications officer in the mid-1960s before earning an M.B.A. degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and joining Lilly.
Boston Scientific went public in 1992 and used its newfound financial flexibility to go on an acquisition binge. One of the most important deals was the 1995 purchase of SciMed Life Systems Inc. SciMed made angioplasty balloons, wires with inflatable tips used to unclog arteries.
Boston Scientific had a sensational hit in 2004 with the launch of its Taxus Express stents, coated with a drug to prevent scar tissue from growing inside arteries.
In 2006, Boston Scientific prevailed in a takeover battle with Johnson & Johnson to acquire Guidant Corp., a maker of implantable defibrillators, for around $28 billion.
Boston Scientific’s hard-nosed tactics sometimes led to trouble with regulators and partners.
In 2005, the company agreed to pay $74 million to settle federal prosecutors’ civil charges that it knowingly shipped flawed stents in 1998. Boston Scientific denied wrongdoing. The company also agreed in 2005 to pay Medinol Ltd. of Israel $750 million to settle a long-festering legal dispute over their partnership. Medinol had accused Boston Scientific of stealing the Israeli company’s technology.
Mr. Nicholas bought a series of used yachts and relished the details of restoring and refitting them. In 2011, when Boston Scientific poached Mike Mahoney from Johnson & Johnson and hired him as CEO, his final job interview was on Mr. Nicholas’s boat in Newport, R.I.
Mr. Nicholas also collected nautical paintings. He and his wife were major donors to Duke, where their gifts supported environmental studies and he served as chairman of the board of trustees.
His survivors include his wife, three children, seven grandchildren and a brother, Nick Nicholas, a former co-CEO of Time Warner Inc.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/boston-scientific-ceo-peter-m-nicholas-gave-doctors-new-tools-11652884086
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