Conceptus (San Carlos, California) said that it has failed to block the purchase of Ovion (Menlo Park, California) by American Medical Systems (AMS; Minnetonka, Minnesota), reported being completed yesterday, but that it will pursue other “legal efforts” of its claims.

Conceptus in a statement said that close of the AMS purchase of Ovion was subject to a right of first refusal (ROFR) that it held, obtained in a previous intellectual property settlement with Ovion (Medical Device Daily, Oct. 27, 2003/Nov. 7, 2003).

Conceptus said it exercised the ROFR on July 2, but that on July 5 Ovion rejected the move.

AMS in early June unveiled its plan to acquire Ovion, a company developing a transcervical sterilization technology (MDD, June 7, 2005).

Conceptus said that after Ovion’s rejection of its ROFR, it sought from a Delaware Chancery Court a restraining order to block the deal, but that the court rejected the request, allowing completion of the acquisition by AMS.

Mark Sieczkarek, president and CEO of Conceptus, said, “We saw this as an opportunity to secure our intellectual property position without bearing the costs and distractions of ongoing litigation . . . we will continue to actively pursue our legal efforts to bring our interference claims in the patent office to a positive conclusion. We believe Conceptus has the dominant IP position in this market, and we will vigorously continue to build and defend it.”

Conceptus makes the Essure non-incisional alternative to tubal ligation, a procedure that deploys a soft micro-insert into the fallopian tube to produce tissue growth to form an occlusion or blockage.