Sep 1, 1990

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A Johnson Johnson spin-off continues to profit from the parent company.

 

Spinning off from a big company doesn't have to mean severing all ties: take I. L. Med, in Walpole, Mass. Once part of a division at Johnson & Johnson, the business was bought out by a manager who concluded he could find financing ($3.2 million in venture capital so far) and go after fragmented markets better as an independent. Still, a quarter of the company's sales of microsurgical lasers this year will come from distribution by -- guess who? -- the former parent.

-- Leslie Brokaw