A Medical Device Daily

Henry Schein (Melville, New York), the largest provider of healthcare products and services to office-based practitioners in the combined North American and European markets, reported it has extended its formal offer to acquire Software of Excellence International (SOE, Auckland, New Zealand) until Sept. 29.

The company said it is extending the offer period to provide adequate time for the remaining shareholders to submit acceptances.

It is offering to acquire SOE for NZ$2.70 per share. The offer represents a 26% premium based on the closing price of SOE shares on April 27, the last trading day prior to when SOE made public the disclosure of a potential acquisition.

If completed, Henry Schein expects the transaction to be neutral to 2007 earnings and slightly accretive to 2008 earnings.

“We believe this offer represents a full and fair price for Software of Excellence shareholders, and we are encouraged that a majority of Software of Excellence shareholders have endorsed our offer,” said Stanley Bergman, CEO and chairman of Henry Schein.

To date, Henry Schein said it has received acceptances equal to about 59% of the voting rights of SOE.

The deal has already been unanimously recommended by SOE’s independent directors.

Henry Schein reiterated that it has no intention of having a portion of SOE remain publicly traded. If it does not receive sufficient acceptances to ensure that there will be no remaining publicly traded shares of SOE, it is expected to allow the offer to lapse.

Henry Schein’s four business groups — dental, medical, international and technology — serve more than 500,000 customers worldwide, including dental practitioners and laboratories, physician practices and animal health clinics, as well as government and other institutions.

In other dealmaking news: Automated Medical Systems (AMS; Brighton, Michigan) reported that it has licensed worldwide exclusive rights to a technology invented by J. Todd Barrett of Mississippi. This is the second set of intellectual property that AMS obtained with the assistance of CJPS Enterprises.

This technology is for a computerized medication dispensing cart and system that will help nursing personnel in medical facilities automatically dispense prepackaged unit-dose medications to a patient, and to store medication information regarding each patient. The technology has an input device that permits nursing personnel to access the medication information regarding the patient and to request that the cart dispense the prescribed medications. A detector is mounted on each dispenser that detects the administration of the medications to the patient and records the time and date that the medications were administered.

CJPS Enterprises identified, negotiated and helped close this transaction very fast, according to AMS. This assistance was made possible through the 21st Century Jobs Fund Life Sciences Pipeline, managed by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (Lansing, Michigan) and the State of Michigan through one of Governor Jennifer Granholm’s growth initiatives. This contract tasks CJPS Enterprises to help Michigan companies grow into the life sciences.