A Medical Device Daily

BestNet Communications (Grand Rapids, Michigan) reported that it has completed a merger with JDA Medical Technologies (Clarksville, Maryland), a private development-stage company with an exclusive license from the University of Maryland (College Park)to develop and use a microsphere technology, named Oncosphere, for the treatment of liver and other soft-tissue cancers.

If gaining FDA approval, Oncosphere will enable physicians to more accurately deliver the microsphere treatment to the tumor site, JDA said. Oncosphere also is designed to enable verification of post-treatment placement, not currently possible with microsphere products.

BestNet is issuing 43 million shares of its common stock to the shareholders of JDA at a rate of 4.78 shares of BestNet stock for each JDA share.

Before the merger, BestNet had about 47,097,953 shares of common stock and 443,162 shares of preferred stock outstanding; it now has about 90,097,953 shares of common stock outstanding and the same number of shares of preferred stock. The total amount of shares outstanding is now about 98,847,960, including shares of common stock and shares of preferred stock, warrants, options and convertible debentures convertible into shares of common stock.

The new subsidiary to BestNet surviving the merger is named Oncologix Corp.

The management team will consist of Andrew Green as CEO and chairman and a director of BestNet and Adam Lowe as president and chief operating officer. Green and Lowe are consultants and were most recently principals of NeoMedica, a consulting firm to early stage medical device companies. Before their association with NeoMedica, they were, respectively, vice president of scientific affairs and vice president of operations of Novoste (Norcross, Georgia), which ceased operations after selling its vascular brachytherapy technology to Best Vascular (Springfield, Virginia) in early 2006 (Medical Device Daily, March 13, 2006).

Andrew Kennedy, MD, a co-medical director of Wake Radiology Oncology Services (Cary, North Carolina) and co-founder of JDA, will serve as chief science and medical officer, director of Oncologix and director of BestNet.

Kennedy said, “To date there has been little attempt to improve the existing microparticle therapies to make them accessible to a greater number of patients. I . . . hope that novel interventions such as microparticle radiation therapy will reduce the huge clinical morbidity and mortality associated with this condition.”

BestNet is a provider of long distance; conference calling, ClicktoPhone; and custom application-based communication services.

In other dealmaking news:

• Lawson Software (St. Paul, Minnesota) reported acquiring Competency Assessment Solutions (CAS; Princeton, New Jersey), a provider of performance management solutions for healthcare. Terms were not disclosed.

Lawson said it now can offer a solution providing a faster method to comply with reporting standards set by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO; Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois), saying the CAS offering enables the replacement of multiple, paper-based processes for meeting JCAHO standards.

Steffan Haithcox, healthcare strategy director at Lawson Software, said, “The combination of CAS' healthcare-specific functionality and Lawson's leading healthcare solutions make Lawson the clear choice for the market.”

Lawson reports providing provides software solutions to 4,000 customers in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and service sector industries across 40 countries.

• Providential Holdings (Huntington Beach, California) reported that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona has approved the sale of the assets of Western Medical (Princeton, New Jersey), a manufacturer of wound and skin care products, to Providential for $5.65 million.

The closing is to occur no later than Aug. 2.

Robert Buceta, corporate strategist of Providential Holdings and chairman of Providential Western Medical, said: “Our experienced management team will make Providential Western Medical an industry leader in providing the highest quality services and products for home healthcare.”

Providential Holdings acts as an incubator for emerging companies and provides financial consultancy and M&A advisory services.