A Medical Device Daily

Natus Medical (San Carlos, California) said it has agreed to acquire SonaMed (Waltham, Massachusetts), a private company that makes the Clarity Screener and associated disposable supplies to help medical practitioners screen newborns for hearing loss.

Natus has agreed to acquire all outstanding shares of SonaMed capital stock in a cash transaction, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The boards of both companies have approved the acquisition, expected to close in roughly 40 days.

SonaMed reported revenue of $3.5 million for its year ended Dec. 31, 2007.

"SonaMed has successfully created a distinct presence in the domestic newborn hearing screening market," said Jim Hawkins, president/CEO of Natus. "We believe SonaMed is a very well-run company that has been consistently profitable for many years and we expect this acquisition to be accretive to earnings per share in the first full quarter of ownership."

He added, "We expect the Clarity screener to fill out our product line in newborn hearing screening."

Natus provides products used for the screening, detection, treatment, monitoring and tracking of common medical ailments such as hearing impairment, neurological dysfunction, epilepsy, sleep disorders, and newborn care. Products include computerized neurodiagnostic systems for audiology, neurology, polysomnography and neonatology, as well as newborn care products such as hearing screening systems, phototherapy devices for the treatment of newborn jaundice, head-cooling products for the treatment of brain injury in newborns, and software systems for managing and tracking disorders and diseases for public health laboratories.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Boston Scientific (BSX; Natick, Massachusetts) and Surgi-Vision (Baltimore) reported a licensing and development deal for MRI-safe technology.

Boston Scientific will gain access to Surgi-Vision's development capabilities and will obtain a license to its intellectual property for potential use in its implantable cardiac devices. The two companies will work jointly to develop a commercial application of Surgi-Vision's technology.

The two companies entered into a separate licensing and development agreement in the area of neuromodulation in December 2005.

Surgi-Vision develops next-generation MRI technologies, focused on MRI-safety and MRI-guided therapeutic interventions for neuromodulation, cardiac EP and localized delivery of cell/drug therapies.

• InSight Health Services Holdings (Lake Forest, California) said it has sold five diagnostic imaging centers to RadNet Management (Los Angeles). The five Southern California-based centers, located in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Encino and Valencia, are part of an $8.5 million purchase agreement involving six centers in the Los Angeles area (Medical Device Daily, Feb. 27, 2008). The sale of the sixth center, in Van Nuys, is pending third-party approvals, the companies said.

RadNet said a portion of its recently completed incremental term loan provided by GE Healthcare Financial Services funded the cash purchase. The operations of the five centers produce about $7 million in annual revenue.

Insight and RadNet provide diagnostic imaging services.

• Tenet Healthcare (Dallas) and the University of Southern California (USC; Los Angeles) have sent a non-binding letter of intent for the university to acquire USC University Hospital and USC Norris Cancer Hospital (both Los Angeles). Financial terms were not disclosed.

USC filed a lawsuit in August 2006 seeking to terminate its relationship with Tenet. In November 2007 Tenet filed a counterclaim against the university seeking monetary damages. USC and Tenet seek to resolve the lawsuit by agreeing on sale terms for the two hospitals.

A Tenet subsidiary operates USC University Hospital, a 411-bed acute care hospital and the USC Norris Cancer Hospital, a 60-bed cancer hospital. Both hospitals are managed under an agreement with USC.

Tenet owns and operates acute-care hospitals and related ancillary healthcare businesses, which include ambulatory surgery centers and diagnostic imaging centers.

• Lev Pharmaceuticals (New York) reported a supply agreement with Plasma Centers of America (San Bernardino, California) to construct and buy up to three plasma collection centers in the U.S. with exclusive rights to make periodic purchases of U.S. source plasma from each new collection center through the end of 2010.

Lev develops products for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Its lead product candidate, Cinryze (C1 inhibitor), is being developed as a replacement therapy for both the acute and prophylactic treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE), also known as C1 inhibitor deficiency.