A Medical Device Daily

AngioDynamics (Queensbury, New York) reported completing its $220 million acquisition of Rita Medical Systems (Fremont, California).

In the deal, each share of Rita common stock was converted into the right to receive 0.1722 of a share of common stock of AngioDynamics and $0.515 in cash.

The purchase, which includes assumption of roughly $3.3 million in Rita's net debt, was disclosed in November (Medical Device Daily, Nov. 29, 2006).

"This business combination is about growth, leadership and long-term value creation. AngioDynamics now stands as a leader in serving the needs of interventional radiologists, surgeons and other medical specialties with a compelling product portfolio of exciting technologies," said Eamonn Hobbs, president/CEO of AngioDynamics.

Among the aspects of the deal that make sense, AngioDynamics said, is Rita's position in vascular access ports which AngioDynamics sees as an ideal fit with its Morpheus CT PICC and the vascular access port technology it bought from Medron (Salt Lake City) last May. AngioDynamics also says its recently acquired irreversible electroporation (IRE) soft tissue ablation technology, expected for first sales in mid-2008, will complement Rita's local oncology therapies.

AngioDynamics manufactures devices used by interventional radiologists, surgeons and other physicians for minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment of peripheral vascular disease. Its product line includes angiographic products and accessories, dialysis products, vascular access products, PTA products, drainage products, thrombolytic products and venous products.

In other dealmaking news:

• Critical Therapeutics (CT; Lexington, Massachusetts) has granted an exclusive worldwide license to Innovative Metabolics (IM; Manhasset, New York) for rights related to the development and commercialization of medical device approaches to stimulating the vagus nerve, believed to play a role in regulating the body's inflammatory response.

CT will receive an initial license fee of $500,000 in cash plus shares of preferred stock of IM upon the completion of a financing by IM and a one-time milestone payment of $1 million upon achievement of all regulatory approvals. CT also is entitled to receive royalties based on future sales and a percentage of payments received by IM in connection with any sublicenses.

"Licensing these patent rights allows us to monetize an asset that is not an area of focus for the company," said Frank Thomas, president/CEO of CT. "While we have opted to out-license patent rights for both electrical and mechanical stimulation of the vagus nerve, we have retained our intellectual property rights associated with the development of a small molecule drug that acts on the alpha-7 receptor."

Innovative Metabolics was founded by two of CT's co-founders, Kevin Tracey, MD, and H. Shaw Warren, MD. In 2002, Tracey and a team of researchers at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research (Manhasset, New York) discovered a pathway for the anti-inflammatory signal between the brain and major organs such as the heart, stomach, liver and small intestine. The Feinstein Institute secured intellectual property directed to both therapeutic and device approaches of stimulating this anti-inflammatory pathway.

• GeneGo (St. Joseph, Michigan), a provider of software and databases for systems biology, reported that St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee) has licensed its data mining suite MetaCore.

The latest version MetaCore 4.2 includes a GeneGo ontology of cellular process networks, which goes a step beyond GO ontology which is also available in MetaCore. It contains additional functional processes and more genes have been networked using GeneGo network algorithms.

MetaCore has a knowledge base for pediatric cancer and the ability to concurrently visualize gene expression and proteomics data. MetaCore also covers many species including human, mouse, rat, chicken, dog, worm, yeast and chimpanzee. MetaCore spans research, discovery and clinical trials.

• BioMed Realty Trust (San Diego) said it has signed purchase and sale agreements with Lyme Properties (Hanover, New Hampshire) to acquire Lyme's remaining portfolio assets throughout the U.S. for about $511 million, excluding closing costs.

The acquisition includes about 600,000 square feet of life science space recently completed or under construction at Lyme's Rogers Street project and land that can support about 266,000 square feet of life science laboratory and office space at Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The acquisition is expected to close in 2Q07, subject to customary due diligence and closing conditions.

Additionally, BioMed said it will acquire a development parcel in Houston and Science Park at Yale, a redevelopment project adjacent to Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut).

BioMed said this transaction would represent its third acquisition from Lyme Properties, including the 1.1 million square foot Cambridge life science portfolio that BioMed acquired in May 2005, and the roughly 700,000 square foot Center for Life Science Boston that BioMed acquired in November 2006.

BioMed is a real estate investment trust providing real estate to the life science industry.