A Medical Device Daily

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, California), a molecular diagnostics company, reported that it has acquired Sangtec Molecular Diagnostics (Bromma, Sweden) from Altana Pharma (Bad Homburg, Germany) for about $27 million in cash.

Sangtec develops PCR-based molecular diagnostics products. It has 59 employees and had revenues in 2006 of about $8 million.

"The acquisition of Sangtec immediately brings Cepheid three key strategic benefits," said Cepheid CEO John Bishop. "First, Sangtec currently has a relatively complete line of products for potential use in managing infections of immunocompromised patients. Second, Sangtec has a very strong R&D team experienced in developing real time PCR based products which will enable Cepheid to more expeditiously expand its clinical test product menu. Third, Sangtec has an accomplished manufacturing team noted for its ability to produce high quality products. This team will provide Cepheid with an established reagent manufacturing base in Europe."

Cepheid said it will integrate the Sangtec affigene family of Real-time PCR molecular diagnostic kits for the immuno-compromised market into its European and U.S. portfolio of in vitro diagnostic products. The expanded line will include affigene assay kits for cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, herpes simplex virus 1 and 2, hepatitis B virus, varicella zoster virus, BK virus, and aspergillus.

Cepheid said the acquisition will be slightly dilutive to income for the first quarter following the acquisition, but slightly accretive for the balance of the year, with a neutral impact for the entire year of 2007.

Cepheid develops integrated systems for genetic analysis in the clinical, industrial and biothreat markets.

CardioTech International (Wilmington, Massachusetts), a developer of devices for the cardiovascular, orthopedic, oncology and other diseases, reported hiring Silverwood Partners, an investment banking firm, to identify purchasers of its Gish Biomedical (Rancho Santa Margarita, California) unit and to manage the sale.

Gish, which CardioTech acquired in 2003 (Medical Device Daily, March 10, 2003), designs disposable devices for cardiovascular surgery, orthopedics and oncology. At the time of the merger in 2003, CardioTech said the addition of Gish provided it with a leadership in the high-visibility, open-heart surgery field and advanced its strategy of expanding the breadth of FDA-cleared products it provides to hospitals. All of Gish's products are single-use disposable products or have a disposable component.

Michael Adams, president/CEO of CardioTech, said Gish "has been associated for over 30 years with the provision of innovative, high-quality, disposable medical products." He added: "While Gish is a great business, it is not a fit with CardioTech's strategic direction, and the sale of Gish will permit the redeployment of capital into CardioTech's ongoing growth initiatives."

Adams added that the sale offers "a great opportunity to align the business with an acquirer that is focused on capitalizing on the strength of the respected Gish brand in the worldwide medical device marketplace."

In other dealmaking news:

• MedCath (Charlotte, North Carolina) and a group consisting of physicians and investors reported that the parties have entered into a letter of intent which will result in the local group acquiring MedCath's interest in the Heart Hospital of Lafayette (Lafayette, Louisiana). Terms of were not disclosed. Currently, the local group owns 49% of the hospital; following deal close it will own 100%.

Ed French, MedCath's president/CEO, said "After evaluating the situation more fully with our current partners, we have jointly concluded the best alternative is for our partners to acquire our ownership interest in the hospital."

Following completion of the sale, MedCath will own interests in and operate 10 hospitals with a 635 licensed beds, in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas.

• American Renal Associates (ARA; Beverly, Massachusetts) reported the acquisition of Metro St. Louis Dialysis-Florissant (St. Louis), an outpatient facility. This is the first facility acquired by ARA in 2007 and is ARA's first facility in the State of Missouri, it said.

ARA is an owner and operator of outpatient kidney dialysis facilities operating facilities in partnership with nephrologists throughout the U.S.

• Ventas (Louisville) said on Thursday its bid for Sunrise Senior Living Real Estate Investment Trust (Toronto) had already involved Health Care Property Investors (HCP; Long Beach, California), which unveiled a bid for Sunrise on Wednesday.

In a response to HCP's bid, Ventas said its fully financed transaction provides Sunrise shareholders a 45% premium over a 20-day average trading price of their units.

"Ventas has a signed purchase agreement with Sunrise Senior Living Real Estate Investment Trust, which was the result of a thorough process in which both Ventas and HCP, among other parties, participated," Ventas said in a statement.

HCP said on Wednesday it proposed to buy Sunrise in a transaction that valued each Sunrise unit at C$18 ($15.45). It said its offer represented a 20% premium over the C$15-per-unit price on offer in Sunrise's proposed sale to Ventas, which was proposed on Jan. 15.

HCP said its offer values the equity of Sunrise at C$1.4 billion.

In January, Ventas agreed to buy Sunrise Senior Living for about $1.8 billion in cash and debt. In that deal, about half the sales price involves the purchase of Sunrise Senior Living Canadian units and the remainder is in debt.