Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX January/February 2006

MILESTONES

Cordis Corp. (Miami Lakes, FL), a Johnson & Johnson company, has acquired privately held LuMend Inc. (Redwood City, CA), a developer of devices to treat peripheral vascular disease. Cordis reports that LuMend's product portfolio will complement its existing endovascular lines.

Viscogliosi

Viscogliosi Bros. LLC (New York City), a venture capital and merchant banking firm focused on the musculoskeletal and orthopedic markets, has changed the name of its nonfusion spine company Spine Motion LLC to Paradigm Spine LLC. Viscogliosi Bros. founded the company in 2004. "We made the change after it emerged that there was confusion in the marketplace caused by several other new companies and funds using the words spine and motion, or variations thereof," said Marc R. Viscogliosi, chairman and CEO of Paradigm Spine.

W. L. Gore & Associates Inc. (Flagstaff, AZ) has acquired Carmeda AB (Upplands Väsby, Sweden), a manufacturer of hemocompatible surface coatings for medical devices that has been a long-time supplier to Gore. Financial details were not released, although Gore reports that Carmeda's existing leadership and workforce will remain intact. Gore, in addition to providing fabrics and components for medical devices, produces its own lines of synthetic vascular grafts, interventional devices, endovascular stent-grafts, surgical meshes for hernia repair, and sutures.

Gambro (Stockholm) has completed the sale of its dialysis services division, Gambro Healthcare U.S., to dialysis service provider DaVita Inc. (El Segundo, CA). As part of the agreement, Gambro will become DaVita's preferred hemodialysis product and equipment supplier for at least 10 years. Gambro is a global medical technology and healthcare company specializing in renal products and services and blood-component technology.

Kinetic Concepts Inc. (KCI; San Antonio, TX) and Novamedix (Andover, UK), a vascular-focused subsidiary of orthopedics manufacturer Orthofix International N.V., have reached an agreement in a patent lawsuit that dates back to 1992. Under the agreement terms, KCI will pay Novamedix $75 million and assign or license certain KCI foot pump patent rights to the company. KCI will also retain rights under the patents and will maintain its PlexiPulse line of foot pump products used for the prevention of deep-vein thrombosis.

Anderson

RenaMed Biologics Inc. (Lincoln, RI) and Genzyme Corp. (Cambridge, MA) have entered a strategic collaboration to develop and commercialize RenaMed's bioreplacement therapy system for the treatment of acute renal failure. The agreement calls for a 50/50 sharing of costs and profits. Genzyme reports that it will contribute about $23 million through the third quarter of 2006, with possible additional milestone payments, to support the next stage of the system's clinical development.

Affinergy Inc. (Research Triangle Park, NC), a Duke University spinout that develops site-specific biological delivery systems, has signed a collaboration agreement with Boston Scientific Corp. (Natick, MA) to investigate new coatings for cardiovascular stents. "Our team is excited to work in a large medical device field where improving clinical outcomes can positively affect patients' lives," said Peyton Anderson, CEO of Affinergy. "Affinergy looks forward to building this relationship and moving our coatings into development as rapidly as possible."

Weiner

Myotech LLC, a privately held medtech company that intends to commercialize a family of products based on its patent-pending cardiac assist technology, has signed a letter of intent with Biophan Technologies Inc. (Rochester, NY) to direct the development, regulatory approval, and marketing of its Myo-Vad cardiac assist device. Under the terms of the letter, Biophan, a biomedical device technology developer, will direct all future Myotech product development programs. "Biophan will bring to Myotech its core competencies in the implantable and interventional device markets," said Michael Weiner, CEO of Biophan. "This new relationship with Myotech represents one of Biophan's most significant business achievements to date in terms of future revenue opportunity and prospective earnings."

DeVries

Cardiovascular device manufacturer Surge Medical Solutions LLC (Holland, MI) has acquired the arrested heart products division of Chase Medical (Richardson, TX). "This acquisition is a strategically important leap forward for our company," said Ron DeVries, president of Surge Medical Solutions. "The addition of Chase Medical's well-established arrested heart products division will significantly expand our existing product portfolio and new product development capabilities, bolster our sales and distribution channel, and further our mission to improve surgical products and enhance patient outcomes."

Siemens Medical Solutions (Malvern, PA) and Invivo Corp., a subsidiary of Intermagnetics General Corp. (Latham, NY), have formed a strategic partnership that will integrate Invivo's computer-aided detection system, DynaCAD, with Siemens' Magnetom magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system to form an enhanced MRI mammography system.

Dade Behring Holdings Inc. (Deerfield, IL) has reached an agreement in principle with pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy Laboratories (Gurgaon, India) to acquire certain Ranbaxy medical diagnostic assets. "This acquisition will open significant new opportunities in an important world economy," said Jim Reid-Anderson, chairman, president, and CEO of Dade Behring. "Our intent is to grow our presence in India."

Mazor Surgical Technologies (Caesarea, Israel) has received FDA approval for its Hover-T Bridge, an enabling platform for minimally invasive spine surgery. The product teams with Mazor's flagship product, the SpineAssist, to form a complete platform for lumbar spine procedures.

Synapse Biomedical Inc. (Oberlin, OH), a medical device manufacturer focused on developing neurostimulation technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative disease, has received total investments of more than $1.3 million. The latest investment was contributed by JumpStart Inc., a funding and development organization in northeastern Ohio.

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