A Medical Device Daily

Victor Acquisition, an indirect subsidiary of PerkinElmer (Waltham, Massachusetts), initiated a tender offer on Friday to acquire all of the outstanding shares of ViaCell (Cambridge, Massachusetts), at $7.25 a share in cash, or about $300 million, $260 million net of cash. The merger plan was disclosed earlier this month (Medical Device Daily, Oct. 3, 2007).

ViaCell specializes in the collection and preservation of umbilical cord blood stem cells.

The tender offer and any withdrawal rights to which ViaCell’s stockholders may be entitled will expire at midnight, EST, on Nov. 8, unless extended.

PerkinElmer provides products and services for the life and analytical sciences, optoelectronics and fluid sciences.

Sunquest Information Systems (Tucson, Arizona) last week reported its formation as a privately-held corporation.

The company was established when Vista Equity Partners completed its acquisition of Diagnostics Systems from Misys Healthcare (Raleigh, North Carolina).

Sunquest said it now owns all business assets, technology and products associated with the hospital systems diagnostic portfolio, including the laboratory, commercial laboratory, and clinical financial products, as well as stand-alone systems for radiology and pharmacy departments.

Richard Atkin, former president of the Hospital Systems Business Unit for Misys, has been named president/CEO. The company said it anticipates minimal impact on day-to-day operations as it has been run previously as a Misys stand-alone operation. Misys agreed to transfer the ownership of Diagnostics Systems in July (MDD, July24, 2007).

Misys develops software and services designed to enable physicians and caregivers to manage the complexities of healthcare.

Sunquest develops information products for hospitals and laboratories that include laboratory, radiology, and pharmacy systems.

In other dealmaking news:

• Ariad Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, Massachusetts) reported that it has entered a nonexclusive license agreement with ICON Medical, an emerging cardiovascular medical device company, to develop drug-eluting stents that deliver Ariad’s mTOR inhibitor, deforolimus, to prevent restenosis of injured vessels following angioplasty/stenting.

Inhibitors of mTOR block the wound-healing response to arterial injury that leads to restenosis, Ariad says.

Ariad will receive an equity stake in ICON, up to $27 million in payments based on achievement of clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones for two products and royalties on worldwide sales of all ICON medical devices delivering deforolimus. ICON will be responsible for the development and commercialization of these devices, and ARIAD will supply deforolimus to ICON. Additional terms were not disclosed.

Ariad has retained the right to enter into one additional non-exclusive license agreement, in addition to the licenses granted to ICON and Medinol (Jerusalem) to develop medical devices delivering deforolimus for use in vascular disease.

“ICON’s design and manufacturing capabilities have led to highly differentiated stent platforms and bioabsorbable polymer formulations that should enable its deforolimus-eluting stents to provide substantial benefit to patients with coronary and peripheral vascular disease,” said Harvey Berger, MD, CEO and chairman of Ariad. “This agreement further enables Ariad to focus on developing deforolimus in multiple cancer indications with our partner, Merck & Co. [Whitehouse Station, New Jersey], while maximizing the drug’s potential non-oncology applications.”

Nuloy, the metal alloy developed by ICON permits the manufacture of stents with extremely thin struts, yet without sacrificing radial strength, the companies said. The Nuloy coronary stent system can be delivered to target vessels and positioned in difficult-to-reach vascular lesions, without compromising radiopacity (density) or durability of the stent. The Nuloy bare-metal stent has completed its first-in-humans clinical trial. This platform will form the basis for ICON’s initial deforolimus-eluting stent for use in coronary arteries.

• Lab 21 (Cambridge, UK), a provider of health and environmental diagnostics, reported an exclusive license with Ark Therapeutics (London) for a test to measure autoantibodies to oxidized low density lipoprotein (oxLDL), a predictive risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD).

The oxLDL test is designed to identify those at the greatest risk for developing CHD, with the companies targeting the emergency room setting.

Ox-LDL is released from atherosclerotic plaque as the plaque becomes more unstable, and thus with the increasing likelihood that an area of it will break away from the surface of the blood vessel and obstruct either the coronary artery or a cerebral vessel. Because oxLDL has a very short half life within the blood, measuring it accurately is difficult. However, the body rapidly produces auto-antibodies and these can be measured by the appropriate antigens.

The oxLDL antibody assay is CE-marked. It is an ELISA test with intellectual property surrounding the peptide antigens used. It will be manufactured by Newmarket Laboratories (Newmarket, UK) which is part of the Lab21 group of companies.

Ark Therapeutics is a healthcare group addressing unmet medical needs within vascular disease, wound care and cancer.

* Community Health Systems (CHS; Franklin, Tennessee) reported its subsidiary’s agreement to acquire the assets of Empire Health Services (Spokane, Washington), including two acute care hospitals, Deaconess Medical Center and Valley Hospital and Medical Center, as well as other outpatient and ancillary services.

The transaction is subject to customary approvals, including approval by the State of Washington Department of Health and the Attorney General of the State of Washington. Closing is expected in 1Q08.

CHS, through its subsidiaries, owns, leases or operates about 130 hospitals in 28 states and one in Ireland.