A Medical Device Daily

PolyMedica (Woburn, Massachusetts) reported setting a range of $30.75 to $34.50 for its previously reported modified Dutch auction tender offer. The midpoint of the range represents a 5.9% premium to the closing price per share of company stock of $30.80, as of May 25, it noted.

PolyMedica said that, through the tender offer, it would repurchase from 4.35 million to 4.88 million shares, or 15.6% to 17.5% of its outstanding common stock, for a price of up to $150 million.

As stated in a year-end earnings release, shareholders may offer to sell all or a portion of the company shares they own at a price not more than the maximum price nor less than the minimum price specified in the offer. Upon the expiration of the offer, the company will select the lowest purchase price within the stated range that will allow it to buy $150 million of its common stock.

If the number of shares tendered is greater than the number sought, purchases will be made on a pro rata basis from shareholders tendering at or below the purchase price.

The tender offer commenced yesterday and will expire, unless extended, at midnight, EDT, on June 23. Tenders of shares must be made on or before the offer expiration, and shares tendered may be withdrawn at any time on or prior to the expiration of the tender offer.

Morgan Stanley is the dealer manager for the tender offer.

PolyMedica bills itself as the nation’s largest provider of blood glucose testing supplies and related services and provides a range of medications through its Liberty mail-order pharmacy.

In other financing activity:

• Applied Imaging (San Jose, California) and the College of Medicine of the University of Vermont (UVM; Burlington), reported a collaboration between Applied Imaging’s wholly-owned subsidiary, CTC (Vancouver, British Columbia), and UVM to develop technology for detecting, quantifying and characterizing circulating tumor cells in the blood of cancer patients.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Cells from cancerous tumors (including breast, ovarian, colorectal, prostate and lung cancers) that shed into the blood contain information about the status and progression of the disease, CTC said. It is developing systems for evaluating these cells in a routine blood sample using a selection technology coupled with Applied Imaging’s automated cell imaging system.

David Krag, MD, professor of surgical oncology, who will lead the program at UVM, said: “It is the undetected cancer cells that remain in a patient following definitive surgery, radiation and systemic therapy that often grow and lead to the demise of the patient.”

He added: “We believe that this research holds great promise for improving breast cancer management, and look forward to working closely with CTC to perfect [this] technology.”

Applied Imaging is a supplier of automated imaging and image analysis systems for the detection and characterization of chromosomes and molecular markers in genetics and pathology laboratories. It manufactures scanning and image analysis systems for both conventional (brightfield) and fluorescent microscopic analysis of cellular and tissue specimens.

• MDS Nordion (Ottawa) and Macrocyclics (Dallas) reported entering into a three-year R&D collaboration to develop bifunctional chelates for use in molecular imaging and targeted therapeutic pharmaceuticals. Bifunctional chelates are chemical compounds used to secure a radioisotope to a molecular targeting agent, such as a monoclonal antibody, peptide or other molecules specific for biologic receptors. Financial terms were not reported.

The collaboration will focus on novel chelate structures, linkers and conjugation methods to enable the use of a wider range of targeting vectors, the objective being to develop chelates with high-efficiency radio-labeling at room temperature, while maintaining stability comparable to industry standard chelates, the companies said. New chelates will be assessed with a variety of MDS Nordion radioisotopes including: yttrium-90, lutetium-177, indium-111 and copper-64.

Steve West, president of MDS Nordion, said the collaboration will strengthen his company’s discovery and development services, including radio-labeling and molecular imaging applications for pharmaceutical drug development, and “complement our leadership position in the co-development and commercial manufacturing of novel radiopharmaceuticals.”

MDS Nordion, which is a unit of MDS (Toronto), develops radioisotopes, radiation and related technologies. Macrocyclics provides cGMP synthesis and a variety of high purity ligands for nuclear medicine and MRI applications.

• Express Scripts (St. Louis) said its board has approved a 2-for-1 stock split, in the form of a stock dividend, for shareholders of record as of June 10, effective on or about June 24.

Express Scripts provides pharmacy benefits management services to more than 50 million members through facilities in 13 states and Canada, including network pharmacy claims processing, mail pharmacy services, benefit design consultation, drug utilization review, formulary management, disease management, and medical and drug data analysis services.