A Medical Device Daily
Cord Blood America (Los Angeles), an umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation company focused on stem cell technology, reported the asset purchase of CorCell (Philadelphia), the fourth largest private umbilical cord blood bank in America. In addition, the agreement gives Cord Blood America exclusive rights to make an additional purchase of about 12,000 customers of CorCell by March 31, 2007. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
CorCell will retain its operating name in the acquisition. The company collects umbilical cord blood stem cells from hospitals in all 50 states and internationally. The company says it has grown its primary business through strategic partnerships with health insurers throughout the U.S. “We have consistently said that accretive acquisitions are the most sensible way to grow in this soon-to-be $1 billion market,” said Matthew Schissler, CEO of Cord Blood America. “This acquisition is very important for our future.”
“I am very pleased and excited about this business transaction. The retention of CorCell’s key management strengthens Cord Blood America’s business development expertise and broadens the Company’s strategic business focus to include national health insurance partners,” said Marcia Laleman, president of CorCell.
Cord Blood America said it believes the acquisition makes it the fourth largest out of 26 family cord blood stem cell banks in the U.S. “This provides the depth and power we need to grow into a dominant force in the stem cell sector,” Schissler said.
Cord Blood America is the parent company of CorCell, which facilitates umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation for expectant parents and their children. Collected through a safe and non-invasive process, cord blood stem cells offer potential resources for treating a growing number of ailments.
In other dealmaking activity:
• Valentis (Burlingame) reported a sale agreement with Inovio Biomedical (San Diego) in which Inovio has acquired from Valentis certain non-core technology rights and intellectual property, including GeneSwitch gene regulation technology; certain PINC polymers (synthetic gene delivery system including poly-glu, excluding non-nucleic acid delivery methods); certain cationic lipids; and certain expression technologies
The price of this transaction was $860,000, with a portion offset by an outstanding debt Valentis owed to Inovio relating to a 2001 license agreement between the parties.
Technologies currently being applied by collaborators under license by Valentis for the development of therapeutics are expected to be assigned to Inovio.
Valentis is a biotech company that was engaged in the development of products for peripheral arterial disease (PAD).
On July 11, Valentis reported that no statistically significant difference was seen in the primary endpoint or any of the secondary endpoints in its Phase IIb clinical trial of VLTS 934 in PAD.
On Oct. 5, Valentis reported a merger agreement with German-based Urigen. While Valentis focused its efforts on the development of novel peripheral arterial disease therapeutics, its technologies are being applied by its collaborators for the development of therapeutics to treat a variety of indications including infectious diseases and cancer.
• Matria Healthcare (Marietta, Georgia) reported that it has completed the sale of Dia Real , the company’s German diabetes supply business, to OPG Groep (Utrecht, the Netherlands), that agreement signed Sept. 22.
Proceeds from the sale of Dia Real totaled about $33 million, and Matria said it will use the net proceeds to make additional prepayments under its first lien credit facility. With the prepayment, Matria said it will have made total prepayments this year of more than $165 million toward its goal of prepaying a total of $175 million in 2006.
Matria is a provider of health enhancement programs to health plans, employers and government agencies for managing the care of their patients.