A Medical Device Daily

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus said it has completed its tender offer for all of the outstanding common shares of Lifecore Biomedical (Chaska, Minnesota), a company it agreed to acquire for $17 a share in cash, or about $239 million in January (Medical Device Daily, Jan. 16, 2008). The tender offer expired March 20.

The depositary for the offer has advised that, as of the expiration of the offer, a total of about 12,769,687 shares of Lifecore's common stock were tendered in the offer, representing about 94.18% of the outstanding shares of common stock of Lifecore.

Lifecore develops biomaterials and devices for use in various surgical markets through two divisions, a dental division and a hyaluronan division.

The dental division conducts its dental surgery business through direct sales and marketing in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy and Sweden and through distributors in 49 other countries. The hyaluronan division operates through OEM and contract manufacturing alliances in the ophthalmic, orthopedic and veterinary surgical fields.

In other dealmaking news: E-Z-EM (Lake Success, New York) reported that company stockholders voted to adopt an agreement for the acquisition of the company by Bracco Diagnostics (Princeton, New Jersey), the U.S.-based subsidiary of Bracco Imaging and part of the Bracco Group (both Milan, Italy) at a special meeting held this past Thursday.

The number of shares voting to adopt the merger agreement represents about 69.1% of the total number of shares outstanding and entitled to vote, E-Z-EM said.

The proposed merger, valued at $21 a share, about $241 million, was first disclosed last October (MDD, Oct. 31, 2007). It is expected to close on or about April 1.

E-Z-EM is a manufacturer of contrast agents for gastrointestinal radiology.