A Medical Device Daily

After entering the UK homecare and medical gases market in May with the acquisition of Linde UK, Air Liquide (Paris) this week said it will now have an even larger “national footprint” in Britain’s respiratory homecare market with the acquisition of the respiratory homecare businesses of Allied Healthcare Products (St. Louis).

Air Liquide will acquire Allied Respiratory and Medigas (together, Allied Respiratory), providers of unified oxygen services including concentrators, directly to customers in the South East of England and Northern Ireland as well as cylinder gases in Scotland. The payment is denominated in sterling and consists of an initial consideration of £36.5 million with £500,000 held back until certain conditions are met.

Allied Respiratory provides unified oxygen services including concentrators directly to customers in the South East of England and Northern Ireland as well as cylinder gases in Scotland. The consideration is denominated in sterling and consists of an initial consideration of £36.5 million with £500,000 held back until certain conditions are met.

With the acquisition, the combined Air Liquide businesses will serve over 20,000 patients in England and Northern Ireland, particularly in the highly populated area of the South East, with homecare sales of around €34 million.

In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) has required an increased quality in homecare services, thus attracting its interest, Air Liquide said. Today, patients in Britain are mainly treated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in their home.

In other European countries, the Group has developed an enlarged offer covering more treatments, respiratory or not, in the same home setting. Allied Healthcaregrew a respiratory homecare business serving 14,000 patients.

Jean-Marc de Royere, senior VP in charge of the Healthcare World Business Line and member of the executive committee of the Air Liquide Group, called the acquisition “an excellent base for Air Liquide – which now becomes No. 2 in the British market – to further develop homecare services across the country. It fits exceptionally well in our homecare plan to implement an extensive network in the growing European markets, to the benefit of our customers.”

The Healthcare World Business Line of Air Liquide is a global provider of medical gases, homecare and medical hygiene with 7,000 employees in 35 countries and sales of Eur 1.7 billion in 2006. Its customers include 5,000 hospitals and 300,000 patients throughout the world.

Air Liquide says it also has expanded its services for other chronic diseases, for example diabetes in France. These treatments are being developed in addition to hospital care and allow patients to have a better quality of life and the community to enjoy a reduction in costs.

Sarah Eames, interim CEO and deputy chairman of Allied, said, “As we move forward, Allied will continue to concentrate its efforts on expanding the company’s significant UK branch network, which provides homecare Sservices and flexible staffing to local governments and Primary Care Trusts. “Allied is committed to providing a full spectrum of disease state management programs to sustain patient independence and mobility in the home.”

David Moffatt, CFO of Allied Healthcare, said that Allied “will utilize the proceeds from the transaction to pay down debt and invest in information technology that will enable the company to more efficiently partner with local governments in patient care management.” We are optimistic about the growing market potential that exists in the UK, and look forward to moving ahead with a significantly strengthened balance sheet,” he said.

OmniGuide lasers on market in Europe

OmniGuide (Cambridge, Massachusetts) reported the beginning of European commercialization for its flexible CO₂ laser fibers. The company said the OmniGuide family of laser fibers and accessories will primarily be utilized for otology, laryngology and head & neck surgery.

Additional applications in gynecology, gastroenterology, laparoscopy and bronchoscopy are under development and will be commercialized over the next year, OmniGuide said.

“Since the beginning of 2007 over 1,000 successful minimally invasive surgeries have been enabled using our flexible surgical fibers to the benefit of patients across the U.S.,” said Professor Yoel Fink, OmniGuide’s co-founder. “We are thrilled to begin addressing the need for precision surgical fiber-cutting tools in Europe.”

He added, “Surgeons and patients throughout Europe will begin to realize the same benefits that our current surgeons have communicated to us about the OmniGuide system: reduced procedure times, broader treatment options, less invasive surgical treatments and improved surgical technique.”

The first European surgical cases were performed by the department of otolaryngology at the CHUV Medical Center (Lausanne, Switzerland). According to primary investigator Dr. Luc Bron, the initial cases of head and neck tumor resection, laryngology and otologic stapedectomy were very successful.

OmniGuide is currently supporting initial European centers through a direct clinical and sales operation from its U.S. headquarters. It said that alternative support and distribution alternatives will be evaluated as the European business expands.

The OtoBeam, BeamPath and LightPath flexible CO₂ laser fiber systems are FDA-cleared and CE-marked devices, and have treated more trahb 1,200 patients in about 150 U.S. and European medical facilities. OmniGuide said CO₂ laser energy “offers unparalleled precision and a high degree of control over penetration into soft tissue.”

The company added that these attributes are “critical” in otology, laryngology, laparoscopy, gastrointestinal, head and neck surgery, and pulmonology procedures, “for which there is the potential to damage delicate untargeted structures.”

OmniGuide said that 20,000 CO2 lasers have been deployed in operating rooms throughout the world, but that, until now, such lasers have limited applications to invasive surgery due to the absence of a fiber delivery system at their wavelength of operation.

The company said the key to its technology is a photonic bandgap fiber originally invented and developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge). OmniGuide holds an exclusive license for the product from MIT and has added an “extensive” portfolio of related U.S. and international patents.