A Medical Device Daily

MedCath (Charlotte, North Carolina) says its board has formed a committee of independent directors to consider the sale either of MedCath or of its individual hospitals and other assets.

The company has retained Navigant Capital Advisors as its financial advisor to assist the committee in this process. As a result of this engagement, MedCath said Edward Casas, a senior managing director of Navigant, resigned voluntarily from MedCath's board. There can be no assurance that this process will result in any specific transaction, the company noted.

MedCath owns an interest in and operates 10 hospitals with a total of 825 licensed beds, in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Dakota and Texas. The company's subsidiary, MedCath Partners, also provides services in diagnostic and therapeutic facilities in various states.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Olympus America (Center Valley, Pennsylvania) has signed a nonexclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Omnyx (Pittsburgh), a joint venture of GE Healthcare (Little Chalfont, UK) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, allowing Omnyx to access an extensive portfolio of Olympus patents in the field of virtual microscopy and digital pathology, to help develop solutions in the digital pathology field.

The agreement helps clear the path for future imaging and data handling technologies that may one day facilitate the way doctors review and manage millions of biopsy slides and other pathology specimens now handled using glass slides and traditional optical microscopes.

The patents involved in the licensing agreement cover software and technology related to creating, storing and delivering virtual microscopy images. Virtual microscope slides enable professionals to review biopsies and other pathology images without handling traditional glass slides, and allow doctors to share high-resolution digital microscope images over the Internet for remote pathology consultation.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

• Amerigroup (Virginia Beach) reported that its New Jersey health plan has completed the previously disclosed acquisition of certain assets of University Health Plans (Quincy, Massachusetts), from Centene (St. Louis). Amerigroup Community Care of New Jersey now serves nearly 156,000 members. The company does not expect the deal to have a material impact on its 2010 earnings.

The sale agreement was previously reported in November 2008, and in October 2009, a settlement agreement was reached to resolve litigation regarding this transaction.

• Teleflex (Limerick, Pennsylvania) says it has completed its sale of its SSI Surgical Services business for $25 million. The company did not name the buyer, which it described as a private “multi-service line healthcare company.“

The deal was first disclosed earlier this week (Medical Device Daily, March 1, 2010).