A Medical Device Daily

Fujirebio Diagnostics (Malvern, Pennsylvania), which focuses on in vitro diagnostics, reported that it has acquired 100% of the shares and equity-related instruments of Swedish biotechnology company, CanAg Diagnostics (Gothenburg, Sweden). Terms were not disclosed.

The combination of Fujirebio and CanAg, each with a focus on the field of serum tumor markers and companies with complementary strengths, is expected to benefit the global diagnostics industry through increased customer offerings and expanded distribution channels to market, Fujirebio said.

Paul Touhey, Fujirebio Diagnostics president and COO, told Medical Device Daily: “We actually bought CanAg to strengthen our franchise in cancer; we intend on continuing a cancer tumor marker business, and the acquisition of CanAg gives us some inroads into some more molecular opportunities; they have some molecular research and development capability that is very strong.”

He noted that CanAg has been a competitor for several years before he approached the company earlier in 2006 with the acquisition proposal.

Fujirebio specializes in the development, manufacture and commercialization of in vitro diagnostic products with a focus on oncology. The company reports that it is developing a series of new diagnostic products to help doctors detect and/or monitor cancers associated with the bladder, lungs and ovaries.

“This merger will result in greater resources for product development while creating a broader market platform for CanAg Diagnostics' existing product portfolio,” said Jan Sundqvist, CanAg Diagnostics' president and CEO. “The merger with Fujirebio Diagnostics is recognition of the achievements of CanAg Diagnostics. The complementary synergies in R&D and clinical focus areas create stimulating possibilities for the future and we are looking forward to being a part of Fujirebio Diagnostics.”

Investors in CanAg Diagnostics now divesting their holdings in the company include Karolinska Investment Fund, Swedish Industrial Development Fund, New Business Venture Fund, MP Bio and Founders.

CanAg is focused on the development of immunological reagents (monoclonal antibodies) against biochemical markers of disease, using these reagents for the development of laboratory tests.

In other dealmaking news:

• Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio) reported completing the previously disclosed acquisition of the pharmaceutical wholesale distribution businesses from The F. Dohmen Co. (Germantown, Wisconsin) and certain of its subsidiaries (Medical Device Daily, May 3, 2006). Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The F. Dohmen Co. is a family-owned healthcare services corporation. With revenue of about $1.7 billion, it puts itself as the fifth largest pharmaceutical distributor in the U.S. serving more than 2,400 independent pharmacy and retail-chain customers in the Upper Midwestern, Central, Southern and Southeast states.

With the acquisition, Cardinal Health said it has enhanced its range of products and services for the independent retail pharmacy market.

• Healthcare group purchasing organization (GPO) Amerinet (St. Louis) reported close of its acquisition of the group purchasing assets of Vector (Providence, Rhode Island). Terms were not disclosed. Prior to the acquisition, Vector was a shareholder company of Amerinet.

Amerinet said it had previously disclosed plans to better serve healthcare providers through a new model designed to transform the GPO from its original shareholder-based model to a single national enterprise.

One of the initiatives in implementing the new model was to acquire the group purchasing assets of Vector, it said, and that the acquisition represents the most recent step in a process that began in 2003 when Amerinet united its network of companies under a new national image and direction.

Amerinet was founded in 1986 when three regional group purchasing organizations, Amerinet Central (Warrendale, Pennsylvania), Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City) and Vector joined forces as shareholders to create Amerinet, a subchapter T cooperative. Amerinet Central and Intermountain Healthcare will remain as the investor owners of Amerinet.

Vector, an employee-owned company, required an employee vote to approve the transaction. The vote passed “overwhelmingly” on May 15 and the transaction closed on May 31.

• Health Management Associates (HMA; Naples, Florida) reported that it has acquired the 189-bed Gulf Coast Medical Center (Biloxi, Mississippi) from a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare (Santa Barbara, California) for net after-tax proceeds, including the liquidation of working capital of about $14.3 million. The transaction became effective June 1.

Tenet said it will use the proceeds of the sale for general corporate purposes. Gulf Coast Medical Center was Tenet's only hospital in Mississippi, it noted.

HMA said it believes this acquisition will improve its healthcare delivery system in the greater Biloxi region.

HMA owns and operates general acute care hospitals in non-urban communities located throughout the U.S. and operates 62 hospitals in 16 states with about 8,817 licensed beds.

• Radiant Research (Bellevue, Washington) has completed the sale of its Early Phase Clinical Research business unit, which included eight clinical pharmacology centers to Covance (Princeton, New Jersey) for about $65 million.

Both companies had previously reported entering into a definitive purchase agreement on April 20 (MDD, April 24, 2006).

Radiant provides study conduct and drug development services to the biopharma industry. The eight centers acquired by Covance specialized in Phase I/IIa clinical pharmacology trials. Radiant's remaining 30 wholly owned centers conduct trials in Phases IIb-IV.