A Medical Device Daily

Sorin Group (Milan) said its board has examined the request to conduct due diligence, received last week from a consortium composed of Ares Life Sciences (Zug, Switzerland), Essex Woodlands Health Ventures UK (London), Intesa SanPaolo (Turin, Italy) and Alpha Private Equity Funds (Zurich, Switzerland).

The consortium has also said it is in talks to add Mittel (Milan) and Equinox Two (Luxembourg).

Sorin said its board "has evaluated positively the expression of interest from the consortium, in particular given its international expertise in the medical device sector," and that it will allow limited due diligence to begin immediately.

In other dealmaking activity, BioClinica (Newtown, Pennsylvania), a provider of clinical trial management services, reported its acquisition of substantially all assets of privately held TranSenda International (Bellevue, Washington), a provider of clinical trial management software solutions.

BioClinica is buying substantially all of the assets of TranSenda for 577,960 shares of BioClinica unregistered common stock at closing.

For 2010, BioClinica expects TranSenda to contribute roughly $1 million in service revenue and an operating loss of $500,000.

According to the company, TranSenda's suite of web-based, Office-Smart CTMS solutions and integration technologies create efficiencies for trial operations through interoperability with Microsoft Office tools.

With this acquisition, BioClinica enhances its ability to serve customers throughout the clinical research process with technologies that include improved efficiencies by reducing study durations and costs through integrated operational management, the company said.

"TranSenda brings a line of Office-Smart clinical trial management solutions to BioClinica that will become a part of our Microsoft Office-enabled delivery vision," said Mark Weinstein, BioClinica CEO.

"With the incorporation of TranSenda's technology, our customers will benefit from the compatibility and ease-of-use efficiencies that exist across the broader eClinical domain.

He added that "this acquisition is an important step forward as we continue to advance our integrated eClinical solutions model and execute our strategy of bringing best-in-class technology and resources to our customers."