A Medical Device Daily
Covidien (Boulder, Colorado) reported the completion of its tender offer through its subsidiary, Transformer Delaware, to purchase all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Aspect Medical Systems (Norwood, Massachusetts). The tender offer expired at midnight ET, at the end of Nov. 5, and was not extended.
Covidien reported in September that it would acquire Aspect for $210 million in cash (Medical Device Daily, Sept. 29, 2009).
The depositary for the tender offer has advised Covidien that, as of the expiration of the offering period, a total of 16,195,245 shares of Aspect common stock were validly tendered and not withdrawn (not including nearly 295,895 shares subject to guaranteed delivery procedures), representing 89.58% of the outstanding Aspect common shares. All shares that were validly tendered and not properly withdrawn during the initial offering period have been accepted for payment.
In other dealmaking activity:
• Facet Solutions (Hopkinton, Massachusetts) reported that it has acquired all of the assets of Archus Orthopedics (Redmond, Washington). The acquisition creates an undisputed leadership position in product offerings, intellectual property and clinical experience in posterior motion preservation, the company said. Archus reported it was shutting down its operations and dissolving after it was unable to raise enough capital to bring the product all the way to the U.S. market a few months ago (MDD, Sept. 8, 2009).
With the Archus acquisition, Facet Solutions now holds 36 patents and nearly 200 patent applications.
• Esker (Madison, Wisconsin) a provider of document process automation solutions, reported that it has signed an agreement totaling about $200,000 with a leading medical diagnostics and surgical equipment company in Australia to automate processing of sales orders into the company's SAP system with Esker DeliveryWare. The company also continues to use Esker DeliveryWare for delivery of outbound business documents.
Anticipating an increase in the number of incoming sales orders processed at its NSW customer service center from nearly 84,000 to 110,000 per year, the company wanted the capability to manage this additional volume without increasing headcount.
The company recognized a need to optimize efficiency by eliminating manual processing of customer order documents, and sought to increase its visibility into the process as well as its ability to identify bottlenecks. Other drivers included operational cost control with reduced paper use and physical storage of documents, and avoidance of order fulfillment delays.
• Fresenius Medical Care North America (Waltham, Massachusetts), operator of a network of dialysis facilities, reported it has purchased Health IT Services Group (HITSG; Nashville, Tennessee) and its portfolio of products including Acumen nEHR, a nephrology-specific electronic health record.
A web-enabled application designed by nephrologists for nephrologists, Acumen nEHR provides physician practices with a comprehensive clinical system integrating care within the physician practice, dialysis unit, hospital, pharmacy, laboratory and vascular access center.
The system also addresses care for all patients of the nephrologist including those suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) that can lead to End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) requiring dialysis or transplantation. This strategic acquisition is an important step for Fresenius Medical Care in further solidifying the company's leadership position in renal care through the utilization of superior health information technology.
This acquisition positions FMCNA to help nephrologists respond to the concepts of meaningful use of electronic health records and health information exchange emerging from the HIT stimulus provisions of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Additionally, the acquisition positions FMCNA to favorably respond to the evolving coordinated, preventive and chronic disease management care emphasized in the healthcare reform provisions under legislative review.