• Advanced Medical Isotope (AMIC; Kennewick, Washington), a company developing isotope products used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases, has acquired Neu-Hope Technologies (NHT), a subsidiary of UTEK (Tampa, Florida), a finance company focused on technology transfer. NHT holds a license to two issued patents and two pending patents developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, California) for technology that NHT will use in a compact neutron generator to produce radioisotopes.

• Baxter International (Deerfield, Illinois) has agreed to sell its Transfusion Therapies business to Texas Pacific Group (San Francisco/London) for $540 million. Texas Pacific and Maverick Capital will acquire Transfusion Therapies’ manual and automated blood-collection products and storage equipment, as well as manufacturing facilities in the Dominican Republic, France, Puerto Rico andTunisia. Baxter will provide manufacturing and a variety of support services to the business. The companies expect to close the transaction by 1Q07. Texas Pacific is a private equity investment firm.

• Beckman Coulter (Fullerton, California) has agreed to acquire Lumigen (Southfield, Michigan) for $185 million in cash. Lumigen develops detection chemistries for high-sensitivity testing in clinical diagnostics and life science research. About 40% of Lumigen’s 2005 revenues of $33 million were from sales of chemiluminescent substrate to Beckman Coulter for use in its immunoassay analyzers. The transaction is expected to close by Nov. 1.

• Syscore, a company owned by the family office of German billionaire Sylvia Str her, has agreed to acquire all the shares of Berlin Heart (Berlin). The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Berlin Heart bills itself as the European market leader for cardiac support systems, manufacturing pumps, cannulas and external components for internal and external use to stabilize cardiac activity in acutely ill patients.

• Ithaka Acquisition (Miami) and Alsius (Irvine, California) have entered an agreement for Alsius to become an Ithaka subsidiary, with Ithaka to change its name to Alsius Corporation. Alsius develops products used to control patient temperature in critical care. It said that with Ithaka’s resources it will accelerate market development and maintain market leadership.

• Merck (Whitehouse Station, New Jersey) has agreed to acquire an 11% stake in FoxHollow Technologies (Redwood City, California) and expand the scope of their existing collaboration for atherosclerotic plaque analysis. Merck is buying $95 million worth of FoxHollow stock and investing another $100 million in the company over four years, with an option for further expansion for an additional 11 years. Merck also will pay $40 million to FoxHollow over four years in exchange for FoxHollow’s agreement to collaborate exclusively with Merck in specified disease areas. If Merck extends the program for further collaboration, Merck would pay $10 million per year, which may be offset by potential royalties and milestones. Merck also will provide a minimum of $60 million in funding to FoxHollow over the first three years of the four-year program for research by FoxHollow under Merck’s direction. The original collaboration was formed in 2005.

• NuVasive (San Diego), a developer of products for minimally disruptive surgical treatments of the spine, entered a milestone and royalty buyout agreement with Pearsalls (Taunton, UK) for the NeoDisc cervical disc replacement device and related technology. The company will make payments of $20 million to Pearsalls, satisfying all of NuVasive’s payment obligations related to its acquisition of the NeoDisc and related technology from Pearsalls, it said. These obligations include remaining milestone payments and future royalties.

• Orthofix International (Huntersville, North Carolina) completed its $333 million cash acquisition of Blackstone Medical (Springfield, Massachusetts/ Wayne, New Jersey), originally disclosed in August. The company also completed financing related to the acquisition, which involved a $330 million term loan and a $45 million standby revolving line of credit. Orthofix said that the combination of its spinal bone growth stimulation business with Blackstone’s fusion, non-fusion and biologic products creates a portfolio of spine products expected to generate about $260 million in revenues in 2007.

• Thoratec (Pleasanton, California) reported that its International Technidyne (ITC; Edison, New Jersey) division acquired A-VOX Systems (San Antonio, Texas), a manufacturer of point-of-care (POC) instruments and disposables to perform CO-Oximetry testing. ITC acquired all outstanding shares of privately held Avox for about $9 million in cash. Avox is now a subsidiary of ITC. Avox manufactures two devices designed to utilize light-scattering technology to make direct measurements in whole blood. The AVOXimeter 1000E is designed for the cardiac catheterization lab. The portable AVOXimeter 4000 provides a rapid assessment of a patient’s oxygenation at the bedside.