Escalon Medical (Wayne, Pennsylvania) said it revised its initial exchange offer for the shares of Drew Scientific Group (London), a company specializing in analytical systems for laboratory testing worldwide. Escalon's revised offering is to exchange 900,000 shares of Escalon common stock for all the ordinary shares of Drew Scientific. In mid-May, Escalon made an exchange offer for the shares of Drew Scientific, with Escalon offering 0.0048 shares of Escalon common stock in exchange for each ordinary share of Drew Scientific. The closing date was subsequently extended to July 2, but the threshold level of acceptances of Drew Scientific shareholders was not achieved. The revised offer requires shareholder acceptance by July 16. Drew manufactures analytical testing systems worldwide and provides instrumentation and consumables for diagnosis and monitoring of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and hematology, as well as veterinary hematology and blood chemistry. Escalon develops ophthalmic diagnostic, surgical and pharmaceutical products as well as vascular access devices.

SurModics (Eden Prairie, Minnesota), a provider of surface modification and drug delivery solutions to the medical device industry, said it has obtained an option to acquire an exclusive license from OctoPlus (Leiden, the Netherlands) to two novel classes of biodegradable polymers for use in the site specific delivery of drugs from medical devices. OctoPlus is a privately owned company active in the development of pharmaceutical formulations incorporating their novel biodegradable polymers. "Our customers are increasingly interested in exploring the use of biodegradable polymers for site specific drug delivery whether as coatings on medical devices, or as devices that are fully biodegradable. We are excited about the opportunity to join forces with OctoPlus to address these significant new applications with our customers," said Bruce Barclay, president and chief operating officer of SurModics. "In addition, the OctoPlus biodegradable polymer families expand the breadth of drug delivery opportunities SurModics can pursue, as these biodegradable polymers are suitable for delivering proteins and other large-molecule therapeutic agents." SurModics now has available five distinct families of polymers for use in site-specific drug delivery. These two polymer classes from OctoPlus, known as PolyActive and OctoDEX, now join SurModics' Bravo, Encore and Accolade polymer families. SurModics' existing Bravo Drug Delivery Polymer Matrix already is being deployed in the drug -eluting stent marketplace and is also used in the ophthalmic drug delivery system currently being developed by InnoRx, an Alabama company in which Surmodics has an investment.