Teleflex (Limerick, Pennsylvania) reported that it has acquired the assets of HDJ (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and its wholly owned subsidiary, Specialized Medical Devices (SMD), a provider of engineering and manufacturing services to medical device manufacturers. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Teleflex said that the purchase adds another line of medical components, devices, implants and instruments used in orthopedic procedures to the Teleflex Medical portfolio.

In 2006, HDJ's annual revenues for these product lines were about $14 million.

"Combining the SMD brand with our Beere and KMedic lines strengthens and extends our product offerings for the orthopedic and spine markets and creates the opportunity to provide medical device manufacturers worldwide with a more complete range of products and services," said Ernest Waaser, president of Teleflex.

Founded more than 40 years ago, HDJ/SMD is a provider of engineering and manufacturing services for medical device manufacturers. SMD provides prototyping, engineering and testing services along with production machining, assembly and contract packaging.

Teleflex Medical, a division of Teleflex, is a supplier of disposable medical products, surgical instruments and medical devices, supporting health providers in three main areas: Devices for sleep therapy, respiratory care, anesthesia and urology instruments, medical devices and specialty suture used in surgery

Teleflex Medical markets its products under the HudsonRCI and R sch brand names, and its surgical instruments and medical devices under the Beere, Deknatel, KMedic, Pilling, Taut and Weck brands.

Biotel (Minneapolis) reported receiving a proposal from Arrhythmia Research Technology (ART; Fitchburg, Massachusetts) to acquire all of its outstanding shares through a conversion, at each Biotel shareholder's election, of one share of Biotel common stock into $4 in cash or 0.154 shares of ART's common stock.

The election is subject to a limitation that no more than 50% of Biotel's shares convert into cash consideration. The closing price for ART's common stock on April 11 was $24.63. ART indicated that the transaction was conditioned on negotiation and execution of a definitive merger agreement and reaching satisfactory employment agreements with Biotel personnel ART deemed key to the combined operations.

Biotel said that a special meeting of its board willbe called to consider the proposal prior to the expiration date for the proposal which ART said is April 24.

Biotel, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, offers analog and digital Holter recorders, as well as tape playback systems for analog devices. Holter recorders enable physicians to monitor and analyze a patient's heart activity over a continuous period without the need for hospitalization.

The company also manufactures digital cardiac event recorder products, which record heart functions over a month or longer time period to record infrequent events, such as arrhythmia.

In other dealmaking news:

• LHC Group (Lafayette, Louisiana), a provider of post-acute healthcare services primarily in rural markets, reported signing an agreement with Munroe Regional Health System (MRHS; Ocala, Florida) to create a partnership relating to the home health services business owned by MRHS in Ocala, Florida. LHC will acquire a controlling interest in the assets of Munroe Regional Home Health Services (MRHS) and will oversee the day-to-day operations.

MRHS operates Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, which includes Munroe Regional Home Health Services. The Munroe Regional Medical Center is a 421-bed community hospital.

The service area covered by this joint-venture includes seven counties with a population of about 1,043,000.

• Montecito Medical (Santa Barbara, California) reported the acquisition and re-development of two medical office buildings, Knoll I and II, in Columbia, Maryland.

Along with 155,314 square feet of medical office space, the acquisition of these properties also includes 19 acres of undeveloped land zoned to allow other developments.

Montecito acquires and develops medical-related real estate.