A Medical Device Daily

Wright Medical Group (Arlington, Tennessee), a global orthopedic manufacturer, reported an agreement to acquire Inbone Technologies (Berkeley, California), manufacturer of both the InboneTotal Ankle System and the Inbone Intra-osseous Fusion Rod and Plate System. The acquisition consists of an initial cash payment of $24 million, guaranteed minimum future payments of $3.7 million and potential additional cash payments based upon the future operational and financial performance of the company.

Wright will begin distributing the Inbone product line through its U.S. distribution network immediately upon close of the transaction. Select international markets will follow upon receipt of required regulatory clearances.

“The Inbone acquisition represents a key milestone in our effort to become the leading supplier of foot and ankle surgical products.” “The addition of Inbone’s next-generation total ankle will no doubt provide significant leverage to our product portfolio and add fuel to support and expand our focused foot and ankle sales force,” said Gary Henley, president/CEO of Wright.

Excluding acquisition-related costs such as integration charges and non-cash inventory step-up expenses, Wright said the acquisition is expected to be accretive to its earnings in 2009 and thereafter and is expected to be 3 cents dilutive to Wright’s 2008 adjusted earnings per share.

Nfocus Neuromedical (Palo Alto, California) said it acquired StarFire Medical (Plymouth, Minnesota), a maker of therapeutic implantable devices for minimally invasive treatment of neurovascular disease.

Nfocus, which was formed last year via the merger of CardioVasc (Menlo Park, California) and Acta Vascular Systems (Santa Clara, California) (MDD, April 5, 2007), did not disclose financial details of the deal.

The assets acquired include products such as detachable and non-detachable silicone balloons, both of which have been cleared for marketing by the FDA and through CE marking in Europe.

The acquisition also included other neurovascular devices and intellectual property.

The remaining StarFire IP is focused on advanced intracranial aneurysm treatment devices that are in development.

In other dealmaking news: NuVasive (San Diego), a company focused on developing products for minimally disruptive surgical treatments for the spine, reported the buyout of royalty obligations on its SpheRx pedicle screw and related technology products and the acquisition of new pedicle screw intellectual property, in two separate transactions.

The company said it believes these transactions significantly strengthen its opportunities to expand its proprietary pedicle screw platform while simultaneously leveraging its expenses.

Under the first transaction, NuVasive has satisfied all remaining royalty obligations for its SpheRx platform of products for a single cash payment of $3.25 million. The transaction provides NuVasive with complete ownership of all features, designs and patents related to “ball-in-rod” technology for use in current and future products.