A Medical Device Daily

CMT Medical Technologies (Yokneam, Israel), a developer of high-resolution digital imaging solutions for the medical industry, said its board will support an offer made by Thales Group (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France), an international electronics and systems company, to buy 50.1% to 100% of CMT shares for €5.65 a share in cash. The deal values CMT at €21.5 million. Thales reported launching the takeover bid yesterday.

Thales makes components and subsystems for professional applications, including hardware and software for medical radiology equipment. CMT will become an entity in the Thales Group and business line, augmenting Thales' portfolio in the medical imaging sector with new products and pipeline potential.

CMT said that Thales' strong brand recognition and reputation, as well as its worldwide sales and distribution network, would provide more opportunities and increased visibility when marketing full digital imaging packages.

"This offer by Thales, in line with the long-term strategic plan outlined for CMT, will enable us to secure our leadership in the field of medical imaging by leveraging our R&D strengths with Thales' technological knowledge, as well as by opening new, much broader channels for sales and distribution of our products worldwide," said CEO Amit Meridor. "Our employees will greatly benefit from the broad, dynamic global resource pool of Thales while our customers will gain directly from the enlarged product and service offerings."

According to the company, the offer reflects CMT's "significant assets as a leading innovator" and developer of high-resolution digital imaging solutions, acknowledging the value of its "highly trained managerial, research and technical staff."

CMT makes digital image processing systems for use in medical diagnostic imaging applications. The company is also engaged in the development of X-ray detectors for various medical applications.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Sunquest Information Systems (Tucson, Arizona) said it has agreed to acquire the Outreach Advantage solution suite from Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (PAML; Spokane, Washington), a clinical reference laboratory. According to the company, the acquisition compliments the existing Sunquest solutions, establishing "the most comprehensive suite of outreach business management solutions in the industry."

The companies expect to complete the deal in January.

The Sunquest Outreach suite will provide laboratory outreach customers with a single-vendor, end-to-end solution for delivering efficient, high quality service to patients and physicians in a connected healthcare model, the company said. Combining Sunquest's best-of-suite LIS solutions with Outreach Advantage (OA) solutions will enable hospitals and laboratories to compete more successfully for outreach business, reduce their operational costs, and enhance their ability to successfully build, manage, and service physician and patient relationships in the community, according to Sunquest.

The OA suite provides customer relationship management tools, sales and marketing business intelligence, mobile courier management, and connectivity tools for integrating and interfacing with EMRs, Web, LIS, and other enterprise systems. PAML implemented the Outreach Advantage suite in conjunction with its Sunquest LIS in its main lab and in independent community affiliates. PAML launched the Outreach Advantage business line nationally in October 2007.

Sunquest is a laboratory and diagnostic information solutions provider. It develops solutions intended to, among other things, improve productivity and enhance revenue.

• Emageon (Birmingham, Alabama) reported that its stockholders have approved its proposed merger with Health Systems Solutions (Tampa, Florida). A closing date has not yet been set and financial terms were not disclosed.

Emageon provides information technology systems for hospitals, healthcare networks and imaging facilities.

• El Camino Hospital (Mountain View, California), a non-profit organization, said it has agreed to acquire the real estate and certain other assets of the 143-bed community hospital of Los Gatos from one or more affiliates of HCP (Long Beach, California). El Camino plans on buying the assets by June 1, when the current lease expires.

• IPC The Hospitalist Company (North Hollywood, California), a national physician group practice company, said it has acquired North Florida Hospitalists (NFH; Jacksonville, Florida) and Orange Park Hospitalists (OPH; also Jacksonville).

Financial terms were not disclosed.