A Medical Device Daily

Microtek Medical Holdings (Alpharetta, Georgia), a manufacturer of infection control, fluid control and safety products to healthcare professionals, reported that it has completed the acquisition of Europlak (Toulon, France), a surgeon-owned marketer of minimally invasive surgical products and devices. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Europlak markets its products exclusively in France primarily to urology, gastroenterology and related surgical specialties. Its flagship product is its tissue glue, a non-toxic, non-mutagenic tissue glue approved for internal use in securing hernia mesh.

“Europlak will become an important component of Microtek Medical’s worldwide growth strategy as we seek to expand Europlak’s current market presence in France initially, throughout Europe and then to the United States with our combined product capabilities,” said Dan Lee, Microtek’s president/CEO.

Lee said the company expects the Europlak but to add about $5 million in annualized revenues. Due to planned investments in research and development, the company currently expects Europlak to be accretive to earnings beginning in the second half of 2007, Lee added. And for the balance of 2006, it expects Europlak to contribute about $1 million to net sales in the fourth quarter and to be neutral to our fourth quarter operating income and earnings.

“Microtek Medical’s current acquisition strategy focuses on those strategic opportunities which will provide more technologically advanced product platforms and increased penetration into fast growing surgical specialties,” Lee said. “Europlak marks a key achievement in the execution of this strategy as their existing products not only complement and strengthen Microtek’s own product offerings, but also provide a platform for expansion of Microtek Medical’s products into France, a market not specifically targeted by our current direct sales force.”

CMC Consulting, mergers and acquisitions advisors in healthcare, introduced the two parties.

Microtek makes products for patient care, occupational safety and management of infectious and hazardous waste for the healthcare industry.

In other dealmaking activity:

• NimbleGen Systems (Madison, Wisconsin) reported that it has obtained a non-exclusive, worldwide license to a number of patents from Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) covering the manufacture, use and sale of nucleic acid microarrays and related products and services in the research field. Financial details were not disclosed.

“This licensing agreement with NimbleGen follows from a commercial relationship and enables both companies to better serve customers within the growing microarray market,” said Alan Sherr, vice president and chief counsel for licensing at Affymetrix.

“This license is a major milestone in NimbleGen’s evolution as a company, and part of a fundamental expansion ofour commercial strategy,” said Stan Rose, PhD, president and CEO of NimbleGen. “Our intent is to expand dramatically the ability of scientists to access NimbleGenproducts and services.”

NimbleGen is a supplier of flexible high-density microarray products and services.

Affymetrix develops consumables and systems for genetic analysis in the areas of life sciences and clinical healthcare.

• National Dentex (Wayland, Massachusetts), one of the largest owner/operators of dental laboratories in North America, reported that it had acquired Keller Group a privately-held dental laboratory business with production facilities in both St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky, and sales offices in Kansas City, Missouri and Indianapolis.

Keller had sales in excess of $17 million in its last fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2005.

The transaction was effected on Oct. 5 in the form of a stock purchase agreement pursuant to which National Dentex purchased all the outstanding shares of capital stock of Keller for total cash consideration at closing of $19.13 million, and an additional deferred payment to be determined and payable in accordance with the agreement’s terms.

National Dentex serves an active customer base of more than 24,000 dentists through 48 dental laboratories located in 31 U.S. states and one Canadian province. National Dentex’s dental laboratories provide a full range of custom-made dental prosthetic appliances, including dentures, crowns and fixed bridges, and other dental specialties.

The board of directors of NNN Healthcare/Office REIT (Santa Ana, California) authorized the company’s officers to take the necessary actions to acquire: the Crawfordsville Medical Office Park and Athens Surgery Center property situated within the St. Clare Medical Center (Crawfordsville, Indiana) campus for a purchase price of $6.9 million and the Southpointe Office Parke and Epler Parke I property, a portfolio of seven multi-tenant office/medical office buildings located in the Southport community of Indianapolis for a purchase price of $14.8 million.

• Emerging Vision (EV; Garden City, New York) reported acquiring substantially all of the assets of Florida-based Combine Optical Management , an optical group purchasing company.

EV will pay about $2.5 million in cash. At closing, the company paid $700,000 with the remainder of the cash purchase price to be paid at various times over a five-year period.

Additionally, the company granted the prior owner 3,515,625 stock options at a price of 15 cents, 2,187,500 of such options, which may be put back to the company at 32 cents per option from Sept. 29, 2010 to Sept. 28, 2016.

Combine operates an optical group purchasing business which provides its members with vendor discounts on optical products. Also acquired in this transaction was a development stage neutraceutical business developing nutritional supplements for consumers with pre-dispositions to certain optical diseases and conditions.

For the 12 months ended June 30, Combine had revenues of about $15.2 million. Combine currently has roughly 1,000 active members in its optical group purchasing business.

EV said it intends to operate Combine as a separate business segment with the existing management remaining in place. Neil Glachman, Combine’s president, has been retained by the company to continue in that capacity for the next five years.