A Medical Device Daily

AngioDynamics (Queensbury, New York) said it has agreed to pay $175 million for certain assets of FlowMedica (Fremont, California), a private company in the emerging field of targeted renal therapy (TRT). The deal also includes a contingent payment based on fiscal 2011 sales of Benephit products.

Pioneered by FlowMedica, TRT is a therapeutic approach that delivers drugs directly to the kidneys in order to prevent and treat acute kidney injury (AKI), the company said. AKI often results from many common interventional and surgical procedures, and is a significant problem in high renal risk patients such as the elderly and diabetics.

According to the company, Benephit infusion products deliver therapeutic agents directly into both renal arteries through dedicated infusion catheter and sheath systems while allowing simultaneous interventional coronary, peripheral, endovascular and surgical procedures. TRT can also be employed for stand-alone renal drug delivery in other hospital settings when desired. The

Benephit systems have been granted FDA 510(k) clearance and the CE mark, and are commercially available.

"With dramatically increasing volumes of interventional procedures among the high-risk patient population, the prevention and treatment of acute kidney injury is a major area of concern for caregivers," said Paul Teirstein, MD, chief of cardiology and director of interventional cardiology at the Scripps Clinic (La Jolla, California), and visiting professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center (New York). "While employing the Benephit systems in numerous high-risk cases, I have found it simple to use and very effective in providing a significant improvement in clinical outcomes for my patients."

Eamonn Hobbs, president/CEO of AngioDynamics, said the purchase is an example of the company's acquisition strategy to focus on small transactions that extend its product offerings, can be sold by its sales force and have near-term revenue potential.

"We believe FlowMedica's Benephit infusion systems have the potential to address the needs of patients at risk for AKI that result from common medical procedures and is also associated with certain medical conditions," Hobbs said. "This represents a significant large and unmet market opportunity with an annual value of several hundred million dollars. We intend to begin marketing the systems through our Peripheral Vascular sales team. If we are successful, this product line could become a significant contributor to our financial results in the years ahead."

AngioDynamics said it has hired 10 FlowMedica employees and plans to continue to operate from FlowMedica's Fremont office. In fiscal 2009, the company expects the FlowMedica acquisition to have a modest impact on net sales and to be $0.01 a share dilutive to earnings. In fiscal 2010, the acquisition is expected to produce incremental sales of $3 million, and to be accretive to earnings.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Exact Sciences (Marlborough, Massachusetts) said its board has unanimously rejected an acquisition proposal by Sequenom (San Diego) for $1.50 a share in Sequenom common stock, subject to a collar. The company said it is actively pursuing a strategic alternative that its board believes can provide a greater value to Exact and its shareholders than the Sequenom proposal.

Sequenom said the proposed all-stock deal would have been valued at about $41 million. According to the proposal, each share of Exact would have been exchanged for $1.50 in Sequenom common stock. This consideration would have been subject to a floating exchange rate within a 15% collar, in which the price of Sequenom's common stock is between $20.74 and $28.06 a share. The proposal represented a 69% premium to the closing price of Exact's common stock of 89 cents on Jan. 8, and a 154% premium to its 30-day volume-weighted average closing price of 59 cents, Sequenom noted.

• Orthofix International (Boston) said it has filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC objecting to a proposal by Ramius (New York) to call a special shareholder meeting. Orthofix also said it has sent a letter to Ramius that expresses the company's "fundamental disagreement" with Ramius' assertion that Orthofix's shareholders would benefit from the sale of the Blackstone Medical spine business. The company said it also believes that Ramius' efforts to elect up to four Ramius-supported nominees to its board would damage shareholder value. Orthofix also told Ramius in the letter that the request for a special meeting would be "duplicative, distracting to management and a waste of shareholder resources."

• Neogenix Oncology (Great Neck, New York) said it has acquired substantially all of the assets of International Bio Immune Systems (IBS; also Great Neck), including several patent applications and patents.

Current IBS shareholders will have the opportunity to become shareholders in Neogenix. Additional terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

• Securities broker-dealer Wedbush Morgan Securities (Los Angeles) plans to acquire boutique investment bank Pacific Growth Equities (San Francisco). The firms said substantially all of Pacific Growth's 75 investment banking, sales and trading, and research professionals will join Wedbush's Capital Markets Group.

• AbleNet (St. Paul, Minnesota), a company that makes assistive technologies and curriculum for people with disabilities, reported the acquisition of SoftTouch (Omaha, Nebraska), a company that develops software and access devices for people with multiple physical and intellectual challenges.