• Arizona Heart Innovative Technologies (AHIT; Phoenix) reported the licensing of a new medical device for endovascular use to a publicly traded medical device company. "This is the second AHIT-developed product that we have licensed in the past ten months. We continue to demonstrate our ability to bridge the gap between good ideas from the medical community to commercially viable products for medical device companies. This confirms the viability of our business model to serve as a cost-effective supplementary research and development resource for companies," says AHIT President/CEO Bill Colone. "We have additional products that have completed the development process and we are continuing to discuss options with many device companies." AHIT licensed the endovascular product in July 2007 from Hani Shennib, MD, a cardiovascular surgeon formerly at the Arizona Heart Hospital. The product is expected to reach both the U.S. and international markets by 1Q09.
  • Endologix (Irvine, California), the developer of the Powerlink System for the minimally invasive treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms, said its board has unanimously decided not to pursue the unsolicited "indication of interest" from Elliott Associates. The company said its board "thoroughly reviewed and considered" the proposal and determined it is not in the best interests of its shareholders. "We appreciate the proposal from Elliott Associates and its long-term support of Endologix. However, we believe that Elliott's proposed valuation does not reflect recent FDA product approvals, increasing gross margin and our expectation of achieving positive operating cash flow in the first half of 2009," said John McDermott, president/CEO of Endologix. "Additionally, we believe that volatility in the capital markets has negatively affected micro-cap companies like Endologix, and we expect the situation to improve in the future."
  • Fujifilm Medical Systems (Stamford, Connecticut) reported the acquisition of Empiric Systems (Morrisville, North Carolina). Fujifilm has acquired 100% of the Empiric stock, making the vendor a wholly owned Fujifilm subsidiary. Financial terms were not disclosed. The Empiric acquisition follows Fujifilm's 2007 acquisition of ProSolv CardioVascular into the Synapse portfolio, Fujifilm noted. According to the company, it is the first major vendor to deliver seamless, web-based access to all mammography and cardiovascular images and information, as well as to all RIS data and reports, from one workstation, with a single sign-on and familiar user interface.