A Medical Device Daily
Teijin (Tokyo), a major textile and carbon fiber maker, said it would buy Braden Partners (Bakersfield, California), a U.S. provider of home medical devices, for around $114 million.
Braden's business name is Pacific Pulmonary Services.
Teijin said it is seeking to expand its pharmaceuticals business in the U.S. and the acquisition comes on the heels of its purchase of Associated Healthcare Systems, another home medical device provider.
NDI Medical (Cleveland), a small company developing neurostimulation technologies, has sold one of its devices to Medtronic (Minneapolis) for $42 million. The deal was disclosed in Medtronic's most recent quarterly filing (Medical Device Daily, May 27, 2008).
NDI plans to reinvest the money into product development, CEO Geoff Thrope told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The company and its 25 employees will remain in the Cleveland area.
Medtronic expressed interest in the company's bladder pacing system, called Medstim, about a year ago, Thrope said. Because the technology was so advanced, Medtronic elected to acquire the patents and licenses to the technology instead of investing in its continued development, he said.
The Medstim system is a combination of licensed technology from Case Western Reserve University (also Cleveland) and proprietary technology from NDI. The bladder pacing system uses an implanted device to deliver electrical stimulation to the nerves that control bladder function.
The company was formed in 2002 by Thrope, a graduate of the Case School of Engineering, and three other Case researchers.
The sale to Medtronic was finalized in April.
In other dealmaking news:
• ICx Technologies (Arlington, Virginia), a developer of advanced sensor technologies for homeland security, force protection and commercial applications, reported the acquisition of S3I (Reisterstown, Maryland), a company specializing in biological threat detection. The company will be part of ICx BioSystems.
ICx will pay about $5.3 million, with the potential for additional earn-out payments tied to business performance.
S3I adds the IBAC sensor (Instantaneous Bioaerosol Analyzer and Collector) to ICx's biological-detection product line. When coupled with ICx's BioXC or AirSentinel product families, the resulting integrated solution will give military, first-responder and commercial customers' fast, actionable information in the field and in protected facilities, according to ICx.
"We have spent substantial amounts of our own funds and government research dollars to bring S3I to this stage and we believe ICx offers the best platform for a broad commercial roll out." said David Silcott, president of S3I.
ICx develops advanced sensor technologies for homeland security, force protection and commercial applications. Its sensors detect and identify chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive threats.
• Third Wave Technologies (Madison, Wisconsin) reported that it has agreed to acquire Stratagene's (La Jolla, California) Full Velocity family of worldwide patents and patent applications from Agilent Technologies (Santa Clara, California) for an undisclosed sum.
The company said the acquisition of the Full Velocity patents strengthens its intellectual property position for Invader Plus, which couples the Invader chemistry with polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Third Wave said the acquisition also supports the next generation of Invader chemistries, which will amplify and detect DNA, RNA and microRNA on real-time PCR instruments.
"Third Wave's strategic acquisition of the Full Velocity patents cements an integral part of our clinical menu expansion plans and provides us valuable options in the research market," said Kevin Conroy, CEO/president. "The next-generation Invader chemistries strengthened by this acquisition will give Third Wave's clinical products fundamental competitive advantages in the most valuable molecular diagnostic markets."