A Medical Device Daily

Trinity Biotech (Dublin, Ireland) reported that it has completed the acquisition of Research Diagnostics (RDI; Flanders, New Jersey). The company acquired RDI for $4.2 million in cash.

RDI provides a range of immunodiagnostic products to research facilities, pharmaceutical companies, reference laboratories, diagnostic manufacturers, and universities worldwide. The range of products provided by RDI is similar to that provided by Fitzgerald Industries International, a company acquired by Trinity in April 2004. Specifically the line includes monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, antigens, proteins, enzymes and immunochemicals employed in the areas of cancer, cardiac, fertility and infectious disease diagnosis.

The operations of RDI will be integrated with those of Fitzgeralds in the coming months, and the combined entity will operate on a stand-alone basis within the Trinity group.

"We are delighted to be deploying our cash resources to this earnings accretive acquisition," said Ronan O'Caoimh, Trinity Biotech CEO. "RDI is a natural fit with our existing operations in Fitzgerald in that it is particularly strong in supplying product to research facilities worldwide whereas Fitzgerald's focus is on diagnostic manufacturers."

Trinity develops diagnostic products for the clinical laboratory and point-of-care segments of the diagnostic market.

HealthpointCapital Partners (New York) reported the purchase of Alphatec Manufacturing (Carlsbad, California), a company that produces a line of spinal fusion products. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"Spine is the largest and fastest-growing element of the orthopedic device industry," said John Foster, Healthpoint Capital chairman and CEO. "This acquisition provides capital to accelerate Alphatec's growth. Substantial funding will allow for expanded manufacturing capacity, inventories, infrastructure and staffing in all functions."

Foster has become the chairman and CEO of Alphatec. Shunshiro Yoshimi, the founder of Alphatec, will remain involved in the company. Alphatec has about 100 employees.

In other dealmaking activity:

• PhotoMedex (Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania) and ProCyte (Redmond, Washington) reported that following ProCyte's shareholder meeting, the companies have shareholder approval to complete their merger in a stock-for-stock transaction.

At a reconvened special meeting of shareholders last Friday, ProCyte shareholders voted to approve the merger agreement and the merger between the two companies. The measure was passed by a vote of 11,121,900 shares in favor of the merger. This represents about 70.3% of ProCyte's 15,822,516 shares of common stock outstanding as of the record date.

Previously, on March 3, at a special meeting of PhotoMedex stockholders, the merger agreement and merger were approved, including the issuance of PhotoMedex shares as consideration for ProCyte shares.

PhotoMedex will issue 0.6622 shares of its common stock in exchange for each outstanding share of ProCyte common stock. PhotoMedex expects to issue roughly 10.5 million shares of common stock. The combined company will operate under the name PhotoMedex and will trade on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol PHMD. The combined company will be headquartered in Montgomeryville and will have operations in Carlsbad, California, and Redmond, Washington.

The companies first disclosed the roughly $24.4 million deal in December (Medical Device Daily, Dec. 3, 2004).

ProCyte develops products based on its GHK and AHK Copper Peptide technology for skin health, hair care and wound care.

PhotoMedex provides contract medical procedures to hospitals, surgi-centers and physicians' offices, offering products and services across multiple specialty areas, including dermatology, urology, gynecology, orthopedics, and other surgical specialties. It bills itself as a leader in the development of medical laser products and services.

• NovaMed (Chicago) has acquired a 51% interest in the Cataract Specialty Surgical Center (Berkley, Michigan), an ambulatory surgery center. This acquisition represents NovaMed's first acquisition in Michigan, the company said.

"This acquisition provides us with the opportunity to enter the metropolitan Detroit market in partnership with three highly respected local ophthalmologists," said Nova-Med Chairman, President and CEO Stephen Winjum.

NovaMed operates ambulatory surgery centers in partnership with physicians. With this acquisition, NovaMed now has ownership interests in 26 surgery centers located in 14 states.

• MIV Therapeutics (Vancouver, British Columbia), a developer of biocompatible coatings and drug delivery technologies, reported that it has executed an agreement to acquire SagaX Medical Technologies (Herzliya, Israel), a company developing embolic-protection technology for stroke patients.

SagaX, a privately held company, is developing the Aortic Embolic Protection Device (AEPD) and other related devices at its research and development center in Herzliya. The AEPD filters the blood in the aorta capturing embolic particles that originate in the heart and are released during heart surgery and other invasive cardiology procedures. This filtration is designed to prevent the embolic particles from traveling upstream in the direction of the patient's brain.

"With the addition of SagaX, MIV Therapeutics will be favorably poised to enter the growing and lucrative field of endovascular interventional products, a critical area of medical procedures that includes advanced neuro-interventional clinical applications," said Alan Lindsay, chairman, president and CEO of MIVT.

MIVT said it believes the SagaX embolic protection device will be particularly useful during invasive heart procedures such as electrophysiology, valve dilatations and valve repair through angioplasty. But the technology may also find broad preventative application during minimally invasive alternatives to open surgery, it said.

MIVT signed a letter of intent to acquire the SagaX as-sets last month (MDD, Feb 24, 2005).

• CompView (Beaverton, Oregon), a provider of presentation technology and group communication solutions, reported a spin-off of its portfolio of audio-visual systems for medical environments into a newly created, wholly owned subsidiary company called CompView Medical.

It said that CompView Medical's technology solutions would enable hospitals to convert existing operating room facilities to a state-of-the-art digital environment, faster, more easily and at less cost than any current alternatives.