Masimo Expands its Irvine, California Corporate Headquarters to Accommodate Growth Projections

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI), the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry™ and Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, today announced the expansion of its Irvine, California headquarters with the addition of an adjacent 32,000 sq. ft. building—the company's third building at its corporate campus. Expanding its corporate headquarters is a natural progression for Masimo, which continues to post double-digit growth increases.  The company hosted an open house on Thursday, December 24th, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., to celebrate the new building and the launch of the Masimo Health Care and Wellness Program.

The expansion is further proof that, despite a slumping U.S. economy, Masimo continues to buck national economic trends, reporting product revenue growth of 17% during the first nine months of 2009 compared to the first nine months of 2008.  The new building is expected to house more than 200 employees, many of which the company anticipates adding to its engineering, sales, and administrative functions in 2010 to accommodate the growing demand for its breakthrough medical technologies, including the expansion of its Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximetry and new Acoustic Monitoring business.

Today, Masimo SET, the "Gold Standard" in pulse oximetry, is at work in the world's most demanding hospitals, with more than half of the top U.S. hospitals—including four of the top five, as listed on the US News & World Report Honor Roll—adopting Masimo SET as their primary pulse oximetry platform.  This year alone, more than 150 hospitals throughout the world have converted to Masimo's advanced pulse oximetry technology.

In addition to celebrating the expansion of its corporate campus, Masimo employees also celebrated the unveiling of a new 2010 Masimo Wellness Plan—an employee-controlled healthcare solution designed to promote wellness and incentivize employees to lead healthy lifestyles. The plan provides the umbrella protection and safety net of a traditional PPO health insurance plan with 100% coverage for preventative care—making it easier and more cost-effective for employees to get routine physicals, annual exams, wellness check-ups and immunizations to stay healthy.

"Over the last year, U.S. healthcare reform has taken center stage.  And, as a medical technology innovator on the forefront of improving care and safety for patients, we at Masimo understand just how crucial it is for our nation to get healthcare right," explained Masimo Founder and CEO Joe Kiani. "We know that millions of Americans are depending on it, and billions of people around the world are watching us!  That's why we have been an active member in both local/community and national discussions concerning healthcare reform in America.  We felt a duty to represent the 'patient care' side of the healthcare story and doing so allowed us to learn best practices from the nation's most forward-thinking organizations."

Kiani explained that what struck Masimo about what these forward-thinking organizations were doing was that they were building insurance plans that put more control and responsibility in the hands of their employees.

"They allowed their employees to navigate and chart their own course to better health—leading the charge for healthcare reform within their own organizations while lowering its costs," Kiani added.  "This inspired us to 'do what is best for patient care,' starting with our own employees!"

Masimo believes that these efforts will pay off by helping to improve the health of its employees and by reducing the immediate and long-term costs for the company and its employees.  For example, the total cost of our U.S. group insurance benefits in 2009 was in excess of $6 million, and was expected to rise further in 2010.  According to Kiani, the decision to implement a comprehensive Wellness Plan will allow Masimo to keep its costs flat for 2010 and will likely reduce costs for future years.

The company is so convinced that healthier people mean a healthier company that it is planning on putting money on it with a new Wellness Rewards Program slated to begin in 2011. Under the program, employees will earn cash rewards for reaching optimal health goals, like maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI), keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels in normal ranges, even smoking cessation.  The company believes that incentivizing employees to "shape up and save" will not only lead to healthier bodies and lifestyles, but healthier minds and savings too.

"We're excited to be in a position to spread this sort of holiday cheer this year.  For many businesses, the prospect of growth within the current economy is a far stretch," Kiani concluded.  "Yet, thankfully for us, our unique technology and product offerings allow us to benefit from market demand and expansion opportunities that make growth a reality that we are actively planning for despite the many obstacles. I am grateful that we are able to provide the lifesaving and life-changing medical technologies that clinicians and patients all over the world depend on, and the job growth and employment opportunities that our economy needs."

About Masimo

Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) develops innovative monitoring technologies that significantly improve patient care—helping solve "unsolvable" problems.  In 1995, the company debuted Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET®, which virtually eliminated false alarms and increased pulse oximetry's ability to detect life-threatening events.  More than 100 independent and objective studies demonstrate Masimo SET provides the most reliable SpO2 and pulse rate measurements even under the most challenging clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion.  In 2005, Masimo introduced Masimo Rainbow SET® Pulse CO-Oximetry™, a breakthrough noninvasive blood constituent monitoring platform that can measure many blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures.  Masimo Rainbow SET continuously and noninvasively measures total hemoglobin (SpHb™), oxygen content (SpOC™), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO®), methemoglobin (SpMet®), PVI®, and acoustic respiration rate (RRa™), in addition to oxyhemoglobin (SpO2), pulse rate (PR), and perfusion index (PI), allowing early detection and treatment of potentially life-threatening conditions. Founded in 1989, Masimo has the mission of "Improving Patient Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications." Additional information about Masimo and its products may be found at www.masimo.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in connection with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control and could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in our forward-looking statements as a result of various risk factors, including, but not limited to: the certainty of future growth and market opportunities, expectations for future business expansion, and job growth and employment opportunities facilitated by business growth and/or the addition of the building located at 60 Parker, as well as other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our most recent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which may be obtained for free at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today's date. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these forward-looking statements or the "Risk Factors" contained in our most recent reports filed with the SEC, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under the applicable securities laws.

Masimo, SET, Signal Extraction Technology, Improving Outcomes and Reducing Cost of Care by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications, Rainbow, SpHb, SpOC, SpCO, SpMet, PVI, RRa, Radical-7, Rad-87, Rad-57, Rad-9, Rad-8, Rad-5, Pulse CO-Oximetry and Pulse CO-Oximeter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Masimo Corporation.

SOURCE Masimo Corporation