A Medical Device Daily

IntriCon (Arden Hills, Minnesota), a developer of miniature and micro-miniature medical and electronics products, said it has entered into an agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets (other than real estate) of privately held Tibbetts Industries (Camden, Maine), a designer of components used in hearing aids and medical devices. Terms of the deal include a $4.5 million cash purchase price and the assumption of certain liabilities.

Tibbetts makes magnetic telecoils and miniature electro-acoustic transducers, including receivers and microphones. Tibbetts also offers products that support technical surveillance by law enforcement and security agencies. The acquisition is expected to be completed in May, subject to Tibbetts' shareholder approval and other customary closing conditions.

"Our acquisition of Tibbetts will give IntriCon access to key components that go into ear-worn communication devices used in hearing health, medical and professional audio products such as hearing aids, and ear-worn headsets and microphones," said Mark Gorder, president/CEO of IntriCon. "Tibbetts' microphones and receivers, coupled with IntriCon's low-power digital signal processing and wireless technology, will allow us to create a series of ear-worn communications platforms that connect people to people and their devices."

Tibbetts has been developing and building miniature electro-acoustic transducers since 1945. Today, the company is an industry-recognized pioneer in the development of miniature transducer and telecoil technology, and has more than 85 employees.

Tibbetts' transducer and coil products serve the implantable medical device and professional audio industries. Specifically, they are used in applications such as hearing aids, pacemakers, headsets, telephones for the hard-of-hearing, cell phones, automatic insulin dispensing devices and medical catheters. About 50% of the company's sales are medical- or hearing-health related products.

Tibbetts also offers audio components, assemblies and complete field kits to support technical surveillance by law enforcement and security agencies.

Additionally, Tibbetts engages in contractual electronics research, development and manufacturing.

Tibbetts' facilities include a tooling and machine shop, a technical library, various anechoic test chambers and electronics labs.

Tibbetts' management will remain with IntriCon post-acquisition serving in their current roles.

Biosite (San Diego) reported that it has received copies of further revised commitment letters from Inverness Medical Innovations' (IMI; Waltham, Massachusetts) proposed financing sources in connection with that company's previously disclosed $90-a-share acquisition proposal As previously disclosed, Inverness provided Biosite with copies of an initial set of commitment letters on April 4 (Medical Device Daily, April 6, 2007) and a revised set of commitment letters on April 17 (MDD, April 19, 2007).

Complete copies of the commitment letters received on April 19, (which, among other things, identify certain conditions to the financing contemplated thereby) were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as exhibits to Amendment No. 7 to Biosite's Schedule 14D-9 relating to its pending merger agreement with Beckman Coulter (Fullerton, California).

The company said its board, with the assistance of its financial advisor, Goldman Sachs & Co., and its legal advisors, Cooley Godward Kronish and Potter Anderson & Corroon, will review and evaluate the new information provided by IMI.

Biosite said two weeks ago that it would evaluate IMI's offer (MDD, April 11, 2007), despite already having a merger agreement in place with an affiliate of Beckman Coulter. The IMI offer represents a per-share premium of $5 over Beckman's offering price.

The Beckman tender offer for Biosite shares is still in place and is set to expire on April 27. Additionally, the Beckman/Biosite merger has already cleared antitrust hurdles (MDD, April 18, 2007).

Biosite is a bio-medical company commercializing proteomics discoveries for the advancement of medical diagnosis. The Biosite Triage rapid diagnostic tests are used in more than 70% of U.S. hospitals and in more than 60 international markets, the company said.

In other dealmaking news:

• MedServe (Houston) through its operating subsidiary Enserv West, has completed the acqusistion of the medical waste service and collection business of InEnTec Medical Services California (Vista, California), a unit of InEnTec Medical Services (Portland, California), as part of its continued consolidation of local and regional operators in the medical waste industry nationwide. The purchase price for the acquisition was undisclosed.

"With this transaction, we add more than 1,000 new customers to our 10,000-customer base and expand service to all parts of California," said MedServe President Mike Fields. "This acquisition also adds new permitted medical waste facilities in the San Diego and Bay areas of the state.

InEnTec's medical waste customer base is a mix of small to medium-sized quantity generators as well as a number of large medical facilities.

MedServe said it has now completed 14 acquisitions in less than two years in its quest to become the second largest company in the medical waste management sector.