A Medical Device Daily

Hatch Medical (Duluth, Georgia), a medical device incubator and technology brokerage firm, reported that Merit Medical Systems (South Jordan, Utah) has acquired the EN Snare foreign body retrieval device assets for $21 million dollars in cash.

The purchase price consists of an initial payment of $14 million with an additional payment of $7 million upon the completion of certain milestones. According to Hatch, the EN Snare, developed in conjunction with Phase One Medical (Carver, Massachusetts), incorporates technology and design elements that improve upon the overall utility, accuracy and simplicity of foreign body retrieval. The device was introduced in 2002.

"The EN Snare has been one of the most important foreign body retrieval devices in over a decade," said John Kaufman, MD, the Frederick S. Keller Professor of Interventional Radiology at the Dotter Interventional Institute, Oregon Health Sciences University (Portland), who performed the initial studies on EN Snare. "During our clinical usage, the device has continued to demonstrate great utility in a variety of endovascular applications. The unique forward-looking multi-loop design provides secure engagement in both routine and challenging procedures."

"We are very pleased to be working with Merit Medical through this transition, and believe they are ideally positioned to advance this technology in the market and maximize its potential," said Paul Gianneschi, managing principal and founder of Hatch Medical.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Oceana Therapeutics (Edison, New Jersey), an acute-care specialty medical device and pharmaceutical company said it closed on its previously disclosed agreement with Q-Med (location) for worldwide rights to Deflux and Solesta. As part of the transaction Oceana Therapeutics (Uppsula, Sweden) is acquiring Q-Med Scandinavia (Princeton, New Jersey), which accounts for the majority of the business for Deflux and Solesta, as well as the exclusive rights to market, sell and distribute other potential products intended for the management of urological and gastroenterological conditions.

Deflux, with 2008 sales at roughly $30 million, is approved in the U.S. and Europe for the treatment of vesicoureteral reflux – a malformation of the ureteral valve mechanism prevalent in some children. The product is also used for other indications outside of the U.S. Solesta, an injectable treatment for fecal incontinence, is approved in Europe and Canada, and is presently undergoing a controlled clinical study in support of a premarket approval application submitted to the FDA.

Upon closing the transaction, Q-Med Scandinavia's sales force became Oceana employees.

In a separate statement, Q-Med said it has received the first payment of 60 MUSD. Oceana has taken over business operations in the USA and will gradually take over the remaining markets during 2009, the company noted.

Q-Med said the deal would generate an additional payment of 15 MUSD when Solesta is approved in the U.S. Provided that certain sales targets are met, Q-Med may receive further milestone payments of up to a total of 45 MUSD. Oceana will also pay a royalty for the licensing rights based on the net sales of the products. The parties will share future costs for the clinical development of Solesta in the U.S.

• Acacia Research (Newport Beach, California) said that its Hospital Systems subsidiary has entered into a license agreement with Sectra North America (Shelton, Connecticut), covering a portfolio of patents that apply to medical picture archiving and communication system technology. The agreement resolves the companies' dispute that was pending in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

• Shrink Technologies (Carlsbad, California) has agreed to be acquired in a stock-for-stock transaction by Shrink Nanotechnologies. The deal closed May 29 and as a result, Shrink Technologies is now a subsidiary of Shrink Nanotechnologies. The transaction purchase price was just under U.S. $9 million and called for Shrink to issue 8,888,888 Shrink common shares, 50 Series C preferred shares and to add one new person to the Shrink board of directors. The closing price of Shrink's stock on the date of the acquisition was $1.01 a share. Shrink has applied for a new trading symbol with FINRA and expects to trade under a new symbol in the coming weeks.

Shrink Nanotechnologies represents the first start-up company from the University of California Merced, and brings together scientists, business advisors and an executive team that is dedicated to bringing its exclusively licensed technology to the commercial marketplace. Shrink has created the Shrink Chip Manufacturing Solution, which utilizes the unique characteristics of Shrink Chips. Made from a shrinkable thermo-plastic material, Shrink Chips enable complex structures to be designed at the macro-scale, while retaining the original designs on a much smaller scale.

• Oxford Biosensors (Yarnton, UK), has been put up for sale following the appointment of Andrew Pear and Ian Cadlock of Tenon Recovery as joint administrators.

The company says it has developed unique technology for point-of-care electro chemical testing for lipids and other analytes, for use in the cholesterol, diabetes and renal function diagnostic testing markets. Its lead product is a lipid diagnostic panel, which is designed for monitoring patients' cardiac risk and the impact of therapy, leading to an improvement in clinical outcomes. The panel enables the testing to be undertaken in the doctor's office in about 5 minutes with results comparable to those performed in a clinical laboratory. This product is now being finalized for FDA approval and launch, according to the company.