A Medical Device Daily

PainCare Holdings (Orlando, Florida), a provider of pain-focused medical and surgical services, said that it plans to sell its interests in its ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) as part of its financial restructuring.

PainCare said the proceedsof the proposed sales are expected to help reduce or retire its debt obligations, thus strengthening its balance sheet.

“Following extensive review of PainCare’s available financing alternatives, including debt renegotiation and private and public equity raises, we determined that it was in the best interest of our company and our shareholders to pursue a more creative and non-dilutive means to eliminate liquidity issues and access necessary growth capital,” said Randy Lubinsky, CEO of PainCare.

Lubinsky said PainCare’s ASC holdings have been complementary to its overall business but not central to its mission.

“Recognizing that our surgery centers were valuable properties of interest to those companies who are actively engaged in consolidating assets within the ambulatory surgery center market, the sale of our ASCs became a logical and prudent solution to address the restructuring of our balance sheet, while also enhancing our cash position,” Lubinsky said.

PainCare has engaged The Bloom Organization (New Jersey), an investment banking firm with expertise in the sale and acquisition of ambulatory surgery centers.

Freudenberg-NOK General Partnership (Plymouth, Michigan) reported it has acquired the assets of Helix Medical (Carpinteria, California) to expand its elastomeric seals and custom molded offerings for the healthcare and medical markets. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Founded in 1984 by Edmund Seder and Edward Jesle, Helix makes silicone components and products for the medical device, pharmaceutical and biotech markets. Freudenberg-NOK, founded in 1989, makes precision-molded products for a variety of markets including healthcare and medical.

Helix Medical will continue to make custom molded products, extruded silicone and voice restoration devices at its California facility and serve the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries through its sales and marketing departments.

InHealth Technologies , a division of Helix that makes Blom-Singer voice restoration products, will continue to operate as a business unit under Helix Medical. Freudenberg-NOK said the acquisition will allow InHealth to focus on expanding the scope and quality of its product lines, while leveraging the financial resources, manufacturing and R&D expertise of Freudenberg-NOK.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Medegen (Scottsdale, Arizona) reported the sale of its Medical Products division to Medical Action Industries , a publicly-held supplier of medical and surgical disposable products. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Medegen will retain its Medical Manufacturing Services (MMS) division and its factories in Ontario, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. The MMS division supplies specialty I.V. therapy products and devices.

Medegen provides products and services to the medical community, providing branded and OEM specialty infusion therapy disposables as well as cost-effective outsourcing strategies to medical device and pharmaceutical OEMs.

• Constella Group (Durham, North Carolina), a professional health services provider, reported signing an agreement to acquire Lineberry Research Associates (LRA; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), a contract research organization and consulting firm.

Founded in 1995, LRA is a provider of regulatory affairs, medical writing, product development strategy, clinical trial management and data management services for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. LRA employs more than 75 people who will join Constella’s pharmaceutical product development business unit. Deal closure is expected within the next 30 days.

The acquisition will provide Constella with expansion of its U.S. regulatory, product development, quality assurance, data management, medical writing and clinical trials capabilities.

The combined organization will give Constella greater capacity and additional resources to expand its global platform to deliver full service drug development programs, the company said.

The news follows Constella’s acquisition of Origin, a European CRO headquartered in the UK, in March.

• HCA (Nashville, Tennessee) said that it has established a record date and special meeting date for its shareholders to vote to adopt the previously disclosed agreement for the acquisition of HCA by an investor group led by Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity and HCA founder Thomas Frist, Jr, MD.

The $33 billion acquisition was first disclosed in July (Medical Device Daily, July 25, 2006).

The special meeting will be Nov. 16 at HCA’s executive offices in Nashville.

HCA’s affiliates are owner/operators of 176 hospitals, 92 freestanding surgery centers and facilities and partners in joint ventures that own and operate seven hospitals and seven freestanding surgery centers. The company’s facilities are located in 21 states in the U.S., England and Switzerland.