A Medical Device Daily

Omnicell (Mountain View, California), a provider of system solutions to acute healthcare facilities, reported that it has completed the $26 million all-cash acquisition of mobile cart technologies developer, Rioux Vision (Elgin, South Carolina) under terms of a definitive agreement disclosed on Nov. 30 (Medical Device Daily, Dec. 3, 2007).

Rioux designs mobile cart technology that is designed to bring quality healthcare to the bedside through a point-of-care medication management process.

With the addition of mobile cart technology, Omnicell said it is uniquely positioned to deliver a closed-loop medication management, administration and dispensing system that greatly reduces the risk of medication errors, boosts staff efficiency and advances patient safety. Omnicell is a provider of systems and software solutions targeting patient safety and operational efficiency in healthcare facilities.

Labwire (Houston) a provider of employee drug screening and background checking services and canine security and surveillance services, reported that it has completed the acquisition of Occupational Testing (Gillette, Wyoming), an established provider of occupational substance abuse services.

According to Labwire, the business is already profitable and will add about $800,000 in annual sales to Labwire’s revenue stream.

Additionally, the company said that profitability will increase as the economies of the Labwire platform are implemented throughout the customer base. Finally, it noted that there are excellent marketing opportunities for value-added services from Labwire such as background checks, volume price advantages for testing and support services, and some potential for marketing of security services.

In other dealmaking news: Ferro (Cleveland) has completed the previously reported restructuring of its Electronic Materials Systems operations in the U.S. The restructuring included transfer of dielectric materials manufacturing from the company’s production facilities in Niagara Falls, New York, to existing Ferro facilities in Penn Yan, New York and Uden, the Netherlands.

As part of the restructuring program, Ferro sold its Niagara Falls manufacturing site and certain industrial ceramics product lines that were based at the Niagara Falls site to TAM Ceramics, an affiliate of All-American Holdings (Atlanta).

“We completed the restructuring program on schedule and we continue to estimate annual savings of $7 million to $8 million in 2008 as a result,” said Barry Russell, Vice President of Ferro Electronic Material Systems. “We are pleased to reach agreement for the sale of the Niagara Falls manufacturing facility and industrial ceramics products.”

Ferro Electronic Material Systems has other locations in Vista, California; South Plainfield, New Jersey; Haverhill, UK; Hanau, Germany; Tsukuba, Japan; and Suzhou, China. Its products include advanced packaging and thick film conductors; metal pastes and powders for solar energy applications; chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) slurries for semiconductors and advanced integrated circuits; dielectrics used in chip components and multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC); and surface finishing materials for LCD, hard disk, and ophthalmic polishing.

Ferro is a global supplier of technology-based performance materials for manufacturers.