A Medical Device Daily

Idex (Northbrook, Illinois) reported the acquisition of Isolation Technologies (Hopedale, Massachusetts), a developer of advanced column hardware and accessories for the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) market.

The cash consideration was just under $30 million and is expected to be accretive to Idex’s earnings in 2008, the company said.

HPLC instruments are used in a variety of analytical chemistry applications, with primarily commercial applications including drug discovery and quality control measurements for pharmaceutical and food/beverage testing.

Isolation has annual revenues of about $11 million, according to Idex. It will be operated as party of the company’s Sapphire Engineering business within the health and science technologies segment.

“Isolation Technologies fits Idex’s growth strategy exceptionally well and is an excellent addition to our health and science technologies segment. The expansion of our Sapphire Engineering business will broaden our product offering, enhancing our ability to meet our customers’ needs in the growing, global market for analytical, biotechnology and diagnostic instrumentation solutions,” said Larry Kingsley, CEO/chairman of Idex.

Idex is an applied solutions company specializing in fluid and metering technologies, health and science technologies, dispensing equipment, and fire, safety and other products.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Nuance Communications (Burlington, Massachusetts), a supplier of speech solutions, said it has signed an agreement to acquire Vocada (Dallas), a provider of critical test result management solutions.

According to Nuance, the deal allows the company to broaden the capabilities of its Dictaphone Healthcare solutions, extend the its domain expertise within diagnostic specialties (including radiology, lab, pathology and cardiology), accelerate revenue growth through SaaS offerings and help healthcare provider organizations comply with industry mandates associated with the time in which critical test results are identified, documented and communicated.

The company said Vocada’s technology is a natural extension to PowerScribe, the Dictaphone Healthcare radiology and pathology solution, and will help healthcare provider organizations avoid risks associated with delays in communicating critical patient findings. The process for delivering and managing critical test results is manual, disjointed, inefficient and prone to error.

• Hologic (Bedford, Massachusetts) said its stockholders have approved its $6.2 billion merger with Cytyc (Marlborough, Massachusetts).

The companies first disclosed the merger in May (Medical Device Daily, May 22, 2007).

In the transaction that is expected to close early next week, Cytyc stockholders will receive 0.52 of a share of Hologic common stock and $16.50 in cash for each share of Cytyc common stock they own.

Hologic develops diagnostic and medical imaging systems for women’s health, and imaging technology for digital radiography and breast imaging.

• Grant Life Sciences (Los Angeles) said it has signed a final agreement with Dr. Peter Sveshnikov and Dr. Vsevolod Kiselev of the Russian Federation, for the in-licensing of technologies that are, according to the company, highly complementary to Grants’ antibody-based test for detecting cervical cancer.

The intellectual property associated with the Sveshnikov/Kiselev technology has been developed as a result of funding from the U.S. State Department’s Bio-Industry Initiative (BII) program. The BII is designed to foster medical and other biological research and development in the former Soviet Union by converting former biowarfare scientists to productive peacetime activities.

Sveshnikov and Kiselev have developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect specific cancer-causing proteins from the human papillomavirus (HPV) — the obligate cause of cervical cancer — within cervical mucous and cells. The test uses certain monoclonal antibodies against these cancer-causing HPV proteins for detection. Thus far, the test is designed to detect cancer-causing proteins from HPV types 16 and 18 which, collectively, are responsible for most cervical disease, Grant said.

This type-specific antigen test, once fully validated and expanded to include additional types of HPV associated with cervical dysplasia and cancer, is expected to be a synergistic and complementary test to existing Pap technology. It is expected to provide for low-cost HPV testing as currently performed in Western countries, without the need for additional cervical specimens beyond what is now taken. In addition, large capital outlays would not be required, as most laboratories can readily do ELISA testing.

Sveshnidov/Kiselev have tested their technology with 1,000 Russian samples to confirm its potential. Grant said it would be further validating with more specimens from Russia and other parts of the world.

Grant engages in the development of diagnostic kits for the screening, monitoring, and diagnosis of diseases with emphasis on women’s health, infectious diseases, and cancers.

• Eye care services company TLCVision (Mississauga, Ontario) reported that JEGC was not able to complete the purchase of TLCVision’s remaining 18,770,302 common shares of OccuLogix (Toronto) by the deadline of Oct. 12. JEGC retains a non-exclusive right to buy the shares, and the agreement remains in effect unless both parties terminate it.

On June 22 TLCVision reported the sale of 1.9 million shares of OccuLogix common stock to JEGC for $1.05 a share for proceeds of $2 million.