A Medical Device Daily

ICU Medical (San Clemente, California), a manufacturer of medical connectors and intravenous systems, reported completing its purchase of the Salt Lake City manufacturing facility of Hospira (Lake Forest, Illinois), including related capital equipment and inventory, for about $32 million in cash.

ICU will take over manufacture of the products made in the facility, such as catheters, angiography kits and cardiac monitoring systems that are part of Hospira’s critical-care product line. ICU said Hospira would continue to retain worldwide commercial responsibility – including sales, marketing and distribution – for the products manufactured in Salt Lake City. It said that the companies together would develop new critical-care products.

Dr. George Lopez, president and chairman of ICU, said, “As the custom critical-care market continues to grow, we expect to further diversify our product line with Hospira . . . and increase our overall market penetration.”

In other dealmaking news:

• RoundTable Healthcare Partners (Lake Forest, Illinois), an equity firm focused on healthcare, said it has made an investment in its portfolio company, Argon Medical Devices (Athens, Texas), to fund Argon’s acquisition of Clinical Innovations (Murray, Utah), a manufacturer of single-use medical devices for women’s health, urology and gastroenterology. Terms of RoundTable’s investment and the proposed purchase were not disclosed.

Argon manufactures single-use vascular access and pressure monitoring devices for cardiology, radiology and critical care. Argon and Clinical Innovations will be combined to form ACI Medical Devices.

Paul Mooney, president and CEO of Argon, said that the companies’ products are complementary “from a product development, design and manufacturing standpoint, although they serve diverse markets . . . ACI Medical will seek to draw from the best practices of the two organizations.”

RoundTable initially acquired Argon in November 2003 when it was operating as part of a business unit of Maxxim Medical (Oldsmar, Florida) (Medical Device Daily, Nov. 13, 2003).

“The executive management team at Argon has made tremendous strides in repositioning the company as a standalone growth platform,” said Joseph Damico, a founding partner of RoundTable and chairman of ACI.

Argon’s products include the Jawz biopsy forcepts, Argo-Bag fluid control system, One Step introducer and ArgoGuide hydrophilic guidewire, and the company reports more than 2,000 direct hospital accounts. Clinical Innovations’ products include the Kiwi vacuum assisted fetal delivery device and the Koala sensor-tip intrauterine pressure monitoring catheter.

RoundTable reports managing two equity funds totaling $900 million in capital.

• Quinton Cardiology (Bothell, Washington) and Cardiac Science (Irvine, California) said that in connection with their proposed merger (MDD, March 4, 2005), a registration statement has been filed by CSQ Holding Company – an entity formed to facilitate the merger – with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Following SEC review, a joint proxy statement will be sent to the companies’ stockholders before any special meeting for a merger vote. The companies’ boards have both supported the merger, they said.

Quinton manufactures electrocardiographs, cardiac stress test systems, Holter monitors, cardiac rehabilitation telemetry systems and cardiology data management systems. Cardiac Science makes Powerheart-brand automatic public access defibrillators (AEDs) and offers AED/CPR training and AED management services.

• Arcadia Resources (Southfield, Michigan), a provider of home care and staffing services, mail order pharmacy and durable medical equipment (DME), reported that its Arcadia Health Services of Michigan unit has acquired Home Health Professionals (HHP), a provider of home care services and staffing from eight offices in Southwest Michigan.

John Elliott II, chairman and CEO of Arcadia, said the purchase provides an “opportunity to cross-market our higher margin, [DME], and mail-order pharmacy products to [HHP’s] existing customer base.”

Since mid-2004, Arcadia has acquired staffing and home healthcare businesses in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts and North Carolina. It operates through 12 affiliated agencies across Michigan under the Arcadia Staff Resources and Metrostaff brands.

• ResCare (Louisville, Kentucky), a provider of residential, training, education and support services for those with special needs, said it will purchase the shares and operations of Health Services Personnel (HSP; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina), a provider of services to people with physical and mental health disabilities. Terms of the purchase were not released.

HSP will join ResCare’s CNC/Access operations in North Carolina. The transaction is expected to close this quarter.

ResCare said also that it has closed on its previously announced purchase of Albemarle Homecare Services.

ResCare reports offering services to around 34,000 people in 33 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada.