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. "This transaction delivers significant value to our stockholders," said Emory V. Anderson, president and CEO of Adeza. "Cytyc shares our commitment to women's health and we expect the combined entity to further extend the market penetration of our products." 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."
LED Medical Diagnostics Inc. (Vancouver) has closed a $6 million financing round through Integral Wealth Securities Ltd. The company will use the funds to market and distribute its FDA-cleared VELscope oral mucosal examination device in the United States and Canadian dental markets through its wholly owned subsidiary, LED Dental Inc. "This oversubscribed round of financing was a resoundingly strong vote of confidence by the investment community for our proprietary direct tissue fluorescence visualization technology and the potential it has to help save lives," said Peter Whitehead, founder and director of LED Medical Diagnostics and LED Dental.
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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 entity affiliated with HealthCor Management LP, an investment management company focused on global healthcare and 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. "Both companies are focused on developing a safe alternative to current practice that reduces wrong-route errors."
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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 that 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.
BridgePoint Medical Inc. (Minneapolis), a private company developing technology in the field of interventional cardiology, has completed its second round of private equity financing totaling approximately $10 million. Participants in the round include new investor Foundation Medical Partners and existing investors Michael Berman, New Enterprise Associates, and Polaris Venture Partners.
Claros Diagnostics (Woburn, MA) has closed a $7.8 million series A financing to develop a novel handheld diagnostic testing system for point-of-care use. The round was led by Oxford Bioscience Partners, with additional investments coming from Bioventures Investors, Accelerated Technologies Partners, and Commons Capital.
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. "Sangtec currently has a relatively complete line of products for potential use in managing infections of immunocompromised patients," said Cepheid CEO John Bishop. A month prior to that acquisition, Cepheid announced that it had entered a strategic relationship with bioMérieux (Marcy l'Etoile, France) to use the best of their respective technologies and commercial strengths toward the development and commercialization of a line of sepsis test products on Cepheid's GeneXpert platform. Both companies will jointly develop the products, Cepheid will be in charge of manufacturing, and bioMérieux will distribute the sepsis assays on an exclusive worldwide basis.
EyeGate Pharma (Paris), which focuses on the development of devices to treat intraocular diseases, has closed a $2 million extension of its series B venture round, bringing the total of the financing to $12 million. The additional funding comes from the Nexus Group. As part of the transaction, Thomas E. Hancock, principal of the Nexus Group, will be joining EyeGate Pharma's board of directors. "EyeGate is pleased to welcome Nexus to our investor group and Tom Hancock to the board of directors," said Stephen From, president and CEO of EyeGate Pharma. "EyeGate will greatly benefit from his direction based on the depth of his experience in corporate, research, and banking roles. Adding a prominent U.S. investor of Nexus' caliber is an important milestone for the company after beginning operations in Waltham, MA, in October of 2006."
Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and Biosense Webster Inc. (Diamond Bar, CA), a Johnson & Johnson company, have signed an agreement to codevelop integrated products that will simplify complex procedures to diagnose and treat arrhythmias. The strategic alliance will enable the creation of an interface that connects Biosense Webster's Carto mapping and navigation system with Philips' integrated Allura Xper electrophysiology lab system, as well as with Philips' Xcelera cardiovascular information solution. "The agreement with Biosense Webster is an important next step for Philips' dedicated electrophysiology business program," said Ronald Tabaksblat, vice president of electrophysiology for Philips Medical Systems. "We are committed to improving the lab environment, enabling new, more-complex procedures, and integrating the electrophysiology workflow process across the complete patient care cycle."
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.
