MILESTONES
Women's health company Cytyc Corp. (Marlborough, MA) has embarked on an acquisition drive that will cost the company about $665 million over the next four years. At the beginning of February, the company announced plans to acquire Adeza (Sunnyvale, CA) for about $450 million. Adeza manufactures diagnostic tests to predict preterm birth and assess infertility. At the end of February, Cytyc announced plans to acquire Adiana Inc. (Redwood City, CA), a device company that is developing a radio-frequency technology for fallopian tube occlusion as an alternative to tubal ligation. Cytyc will initially pay $60 million for the purchase, and will add milestone and earn-out payments over the next four years to a total of $215 million.
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| Cole |
RecoverCare (Plymouth Meeting, PA) and Sten-Barr Medical (Tampa, FL) have signed an agreement to combine the two companies. Both organizations provide therapeutic support surfaces, specialty beds, and bariatric equipment to hospitals, nursing homes, and home care patients. "RecoverCare has an excellent reputation in the marketplace, and we are ecstatic about the united company's potential," said Micheal Cole, Sten-Barr's president. "Its solid presence in the acute care and home care market and its ownership of a bariatric manufacturer complement our own strengths in long-term care."
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| Viscogliosi |
Paradigm Spine LLC (New York City) has completed a $13.9 million series D private placement. The investment round was led by an en- tity affiliated with HealthCor Management LP, an investment management company focused on life sciences. The HealthCor affiliate will receive a seat on the board of managers of Paradigm Spine. "Our successful series D round reflects the confidence our investors have in our business plan and results to date," said Marc R. Viscogliosi, chairman and CEO of Paradigm Spine LLC. "Many of our series D investors also participated in previous rounds."
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| Calabrese |
Baxa Corp. (Englewood, CO) has signed an exclusive comarketing agreement with Viasys MedSystems Inc., a subsidiary of Viasys Healthcare Inc. (Conshohocken, PA), to cross-promote their respective enteral feeding products for neonates. "The agreement formalizes the strong relationship that Baxa and Viasys have built over the past few months in addressing the issue of tubing misconnections in our most critical patients—neonates," said Baxa product manager Katie Calabrese.
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| Corbett |
Recently, ev3 Inc. (Plymouth, MN) announced FDA's approval of the Protege RX carotid stent. The stent, when used in conjunction with the ev3 SpideRX embolic protection device, is indicated for the treatment of carotid artery disease in patients who are at high risk for adverse events from carotid artery surgery. "We believe the unique attributes of both the Protege RX and SpideRX will permit ev3 to be a strong competitor in the carotid stenting market, which we estimate could reach $250 million worldwide in 2007," said Jim Corbett, ev3's president and CEO. In a separate announcement, ev3 reported that it has entered into an agreement with FoxHollow Technologies Inc. (Redwood City, CA) to conduct a joint clinical study of the SpideRX device with FoxHollow's calcium-cutting device, the RockHawk, for the treatment of calcified lesions in peripheral artery disease. As part of the agreement, FoxHollow will have the exclusive right to market the two devices together in the United States.
Molecular diagnostics company Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA) has acquired Sangtec Molecular Diagnostics AB (Bromma, Sweden) from Altana Pharma AG (Konstanz, Germany) for about $27 million in cash. Sangtec develops and manufactures molecular diagnostics products.
Aculight Corp. (Bothell, WA), a developer of laser technologies, has signed a license agreement with Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) for fundamental intellectual property related to the optical stimulation of neural tissue. The technology forms the foundation of Aculight's first medical research product, the Capella R-1850 infrared neural stimulator. "Our license agreement with Vanderbilt grew out of a joint development effort to produce a compact, low-cost, infrared nerve stimulator that is superior to the electrical stimulators ubiquitous in neurological applications," said Mark Bendett, director of product development for Aculight.
