Sorin Lays Off 200 in Reorganization : Jobs: The Irvine-based subsidiary earlier this year bought most of Shiley Inc.’s medical product lines.

IRVINE — The company that bought most of Shiley Inc.’s medical product lines earlier this year confirmed Thursday that it is laying off 200 workers here as part of a reorganization.

Sorin Biomedical, a subsidiary of Italy’s Sorin Biomedica S.p.A., said the reorganization will include splitting Sorin’s product lines into four business groups. That will leave Sorin with about 770 employees at its U.S. headquarters in Irvine and sales offices across the country.

“Clearly, as (Sorin officials) looked at the profitability, changes had to be made,” said T.C. Newman, Sorin’s vice president of human resources. “Each product line has a different market. Each business group can now concentrate on its own product line and market conditions.”

The job cuts, made in all sectors of Sorin’s operation, were outlined to employees Monday. Most of the layoffs are effective today, Newman said.

In February, Sorin Biomedica bought Shiley’s line of heart valves, blood transfusion devices, tracheotomy tubes and blood oxygenators for $230 million. Sorin also assumed $20 million in financial obligations with each product line. Most employees of Shiley, which is based in Irvine, transferred to Sorin at the time of the sale.

Shiley’s parent company, Pfizer Inc. in New York, kept the Shiley Heart Valve Research Center in Irvine, as well as responsibility for legal liabilities generated by the alleged defects in a type of convexo-concave heart valve sold by Shiley from 1979 to 1986. Struts that hold the valve together have fractured in about 450 implant recipients; about two-thirds of those patients have died.

Pfizer is facing class-action lawsuits on behalf of 55,000 people who received the heart valves. The company has offered those valve recipients a $205-million settlement.

The reorganization announced this week had been expected as long ago as July, when Pfizer announced that it was selling off most of its Irvine medical products operations, Newman said.

Sorin employees laid off this week will receive severance pay equal to six months of salary, Newman said, plus an extra two weeks of pay for each year of service. The company has also hired a consultant to provide job training and placement, and will pay medical benefits for unemployed former workers for as long as a year, he said.

“It was a difficult decision for the company to downsize,” Newman said. “We have always valued our employees, and we are doing our best to find them positions in their areas of specialty.”