A Medical Device Daily

CardioNet (San Diego), a provider of wireless mobile cardiac outpatient monitoring solutions, reported that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire PDSHeart (West Palm Beach, Florida), a cardiac event monitoring company. The acquisition is expected to close in March. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

PDSHeart's line of cardiac event monitors and related services will be added to CardioNet's wireless mobile cardiac outpatient monitoring platform, marketed as the CardioNet system. The combination will position the company as a single source for a comprehensive range of arrhythmia monitoring solutions. The combined company is currently serving patients in 49 states.

"The merger of CardioNet and PDSHeart will immediately create the largest U.S. company in the growing field of outpatient cardiac monitoring," said James Sweeney, CEO and chairman of CardioNet. "It will allow us to provide physicians with a complete continuum of cardiac monitoring solutions they need today to more rapidly and effectively diagnose and treat patients with cardiovascular disease."

PDSHeart will operate as a CardioNet subsidiary, with its corporate offices in West Palm Beach, Florida. CardioNet's principle monitoring center is in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Bio-Imaging Technologies (Newtown, Pennsylvania) reported that it has acquired Theralys (Lyon, France), a provider of customized imaging services in the field of central nervous system disorders (CNS) and neurovascular diseases.

Theralys' image processing software enables the introduction of quantitative imaging markers in the design of clinical trials for neurovascular and CNS disorders, including stroke, multiple sclerosis and dementia, as well as Alzheimer's disease (AD).

It operates an imaging core lab providing centralized blinded read services and image analysis. Their proprietary and validated software for clinical trials includes applications which enable the automated quantitation of various imaging parameters such as brain, white matter lesion and hippocampal volumes, MRI diffusion and perfusion.

Bio-Imaging's Medical Director, Andrea Perrone, notes, "It is estimated that there are currently more than 10 million patients globally with Alzheimer's disease. With the aging of the baby boomer population, it is expected that the prevalence of this disease will expand. It follows that clinical trials for AD therapeutics will also increase, and Bio-Imaging will be poised to offer our solutions to our clients."

In other dealmaking news:

• AmerisourceBergen (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania) and Kindred Healthcare (Louisville, Kentucky) reported that they expect to complete the proposed combination of their respective institutional pharmacy businesses, PharMerica Long-Term Care and Kindred Pharmacy Services (KPS), during the second quarter of calendar year 2007. The two companies had previously expected to complete the combination by March 31.

Gregory Weishar has joined as CEO of the new PharMerica Corp. and the proposed new company will be headquartered in Louisville, with a customer service center in Tampa, Florida.

The combination is structured to be a tax-free transaction which will result in AmerisourceBergen and Kindred shareholders each holding 50% of the shares of the new company.

PharMerica and KPS will each make a one-time cash distribution, intended to be tax-free, of up to $150 million to their parent companies, subject to potential adjustments at transaction close.

PharMerica and KPS will fund the distributions by borrowing up to $150 million each for a total of $300 million of new debt. The new company will assume this debt as part of the merger. This new debt would be the only long-term debt the new company assumes from the parent companies, leaving it with "significant financial flexibility," it said.

After the cash distributions, each of the institutional pharmacy businesses would be separately spun off to AmerisourceBergen and Kindred shareholders, to be followed immediately by a stock-for-stock merger which would result in AmerisourceBergen and Kindred shareholders each owning 50% of the new company.

• Biomet (Warsaw, Indiana) reported that Biomet Sports Medicine, the company's arthroscopy subsidiary, has licensed more than 45 patents with applications in sports medicine and arthroscopy through an agreement with Marc Tec, one of a family of affiliated companies of Bonutti Technologies (Effingham, Illinois), a developer of minimally invasive surgical instrumentation.

Biomet Sports Medicine will work with orthopedic surgeon Peter Bonutti, MD, of the Bonutti Clinic in Effingham to develop new products in the areas of meniscal repair and suture anchors.

• Amedisys (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) reported the acquisition of Horizons Hospice Care (Montgomery, Alabama), a hospice agency, effective as of Feb. 1. Terms of the acquisition purchase agreement were not disclosed.

The acquired agency is expected to contribute about $1.4 million in annualized revenues, Amedisys said. The acquisition is not expected to add materially to Amedisys' earnings in 2007, it said.

• Pediatric Services of America (PSA; Norcross, Georgia) reported signing and closing an agreement to acquire substantially all of the pediatric assets of Wilkerson Health Care (Temple, Texas). The purchase price is about $268,000 in cash with Wilkerson retaining its accounts receivable.

The acquisition includes Wilkerson's pediatric nursing business and will be consolidated into PSA's existing branch in Austin, Texas.

PSA provides pediatric home healthcare services through a network of 54 branch offices in 18 states.