• Biopool International (Ventura, California) has purchased Xtrana (Denver, Colorado), the developer of a system for rapid extraction and testing of nucleic acid samples from whole blood. Biopool issued an aggregate of 9.37 million shares of stock in exchange for all the issued and outstanding shares of Xtrana common and preferred stock, with Biopool and Xtrana stockholders splitting the outstanding stock of the combined firm. With closing of the merger, Xtrana CEO John Wheeler was named CEO of the combined company. Biopool makes kits to assess and diagnose disorders of blood coagulation, thrombotic risk factors, fibrinolysis, platelet function and the vascular system, as well as specialty toxicology controls.
  • CMDI (Princeton, New Jersey) reported completing the purchase of the assets of CAT-ECG (Long Island, New York), a developer of cardiac testing and telemedicine products. Terms of the purchase were not announced. James Clingham, president of CMDI, said that purchase of CAT-ECG is the second of a series of acquisitions the company will make and that its overall plan is "to find suitable partners to cover the range of diagnostic services from baseline telemedicine diagnostics like CAT does, to high-end services in managing sophisticated hospital-based laboratories, like our cardiovascular division." He said that CAT-ECG "has been a collaborative partner of CMG since our inception." CAT-ECG provides ambulatory monitoring, serving 40 facilities and over 300 medical offices. The combined companies will serve more than 300 long-term care facilities and institutions, hundreds of medical offices and more than a dozen in-hospital labs.
  • GE Medical Systems (Waukesha, Wisconsin) will purchase Micro Medical Systems (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), a provider of client server and web-based applications supporting clinical operations in cardiology. GE Medical also will acquire the outstanding shares of Life Diagnostics, the parent company of Micro Medical. Under the agreement, the purchase price will be paid out to each Life Diagnostics shareholder in two pieces: First, a lump-sum payment would be made to each shareholder at the closing of the transaction; second, each shareholder would choose to have certain contingent payments paid either in one discounted payment at closing or in payments spread over three years. The contingent payments paid out over time would only be paid on the achievement of certain agreed conditions. The deal is expected to close this month. Micro Medical develops cardiology data repositories, integration solutions and networking systems for international health care organizations. GE Medical, a medical information and technology developer, provides networking and productivity tools, health care information systems, patient monitoring systems, conventional and digital X-ray, computed tomography, magnetic resonance, ultrasound, positron emission tomography and nuclear medicine.
  • Stent manufacturer Jomed NV (Beringen, Switzerland) said it will acquire the stock of EndoSonics (Rancho Cordova, California) for $11 per share, or a total of $205 million. A new offering of Jomed shares will be used to fund $150 million of the purchase, with the balance to be made through Jomed's existing cash, the company said. Jomed is a leading maker of stents for interventional cardiology, offering more than 600 products. In 1999, the company had sales of $39.5 million and a net profit of $1.9 million. EndoSonics, which makes products for visualization through intravascular ultrasound, had sales of $48 million in 40 countries in 1999. Jomed President and CEO Tor Peters said that the purchase will create a "synergy in our existing international sales and manufacturing organizations [and] we will also gain access to an established U.S. sales force, helping us to penetrate the large U.S. market faster and more effectively than would otherwise be the case .... [W]e are forming the world's fastest-growing and widest-ranging company in the field of minimally invasive vascular intervention and therapy." The tender offer was expected to close in mid- to late-September. After that, Jomed will acquire the remaining shares of EndoSonics' outstanding common stock through a merger of a wholly owned subsidiary of Jomed with and into EndoSonics.
  • Somanetics (Troy, Michigan) reported completing the acquisition of exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing licenses to specified rights (including rights under a patent) relating to a cardiac implant device being developed for use in a surgical treatment of patients with congestive heart failure. The device is implanted in the heart during a procedure called surgical anterior ventricular restoration (SAVR), in which the surgeon restores, or remodels, an enlarged left ventricle to more normal size and function by inserting an implant. The device is intended to make SAVR easy for the surgeon and to provide a quality seal to minimize leaking. Somanetics said it intends to market the device under the trade name COR restore. The SAVR procedure and implant were developed by cardiac surgeons Gerald Buckberg, MD, professor of surgery at UCLA Medical Center, and Constantine Athanasuleas, MD, chief of cardiac surgery at Carraway Methodist Medical Center (Birmingham, Alabama). Buckberg and Athanasuleas were issued a patent on their patch covering 12 claims in February, and 72 other claims are under consideration.