A Medical Device Daily

Vital Signs (Totowa, New Jersey) reported the acquisitions of a sleep diagnostic company and a durable equipment supplier in its Sleep Segment business unit.

Sleep Services of America (SSA), a majority owned Vital Signs subsidiary, acquired the assets of Southern Sleep Technologies and Southern Home Respiratory Care (both Macon, Georgia)

Southern Sleep Technologies primarily provides sleep diagnostic services in both free standing and hospital owned sleep laboratories, and Southern Home Respiratory Care is a provider of CPAP equipment to sleep apnea patients.

Southern Sleep and Southern Home Respiratory had revenue of $2.1 million in 2006 and the acquisition costs are about $3 million. Vital Signs now owns 73% of SSA, with the Johns Hopkins Health System (Baltimore) owning 26%.

John Mathias, president of SSA said, "These acquisitions allow SSA to expand its geographic coverage in the greater Atlanta area. This acquisition propels our strategy of providing the patient with a complete range of sleep services. By guiding patients through the diagnostic procedure, through the training and use of CPAP devices and through follow-up services, SSA is uniquely positioned to address the patient's sleep needs. We are excited that the founder and owner of the business will be staying with us to develop and improve the delivery of sleep diagnostic and therapeutic services."

Vital Signs and its subsidiaries make single-use medical products for the anesthesia, respiratory/critical care, sleep/ventilation and interventional cardiology/radiology markets

In other dealmaking news, Dentsply International (York, Pennsylvania) reported the acquisition of the assets of Sultan Healthcare (Englewood, New Jersey), previously disclosed in June, has been completed (Medical Device Daily, June 25, 2007). It is expected that this acquisition will add about $45 million to $50 million on an annualized basis to Dentsply's sales.

With this acquisition, the company said it will expand its product offerings by entering new categories such as infection control products.

Denstply makes a range of products for the dental market.