Cardinal Health is snatching up California devicemaker AccessClosure for $320 million in cash, a deal that will give the Ohio healthcare services giant a line of cutting-edge vascular closure surgical devices.
Cardinal Health makes a number of medical and surgical products including gloves, surgical clothing and fluid management products. The company is also considered one of the major direct-to-home medical supplies distributors, and it dispenses products (through a network of radiopharmacies) that help diagnose and treat disease. That's a wide reach, to be sure. But Don Case, CEO of Cardinal Health's medical segment, said in a statement that this acquisition fits with the company's broad strategy to help provide products that make hospital procedures and services more cost-effective.
"We are excited about this opportunity because it provides a scalable platform--with an outstanding product, strong customer base, cost-effective service model and seasoned management team," Casey said. "… This acquisition will broaden our offering in another physician preference category. We look forward to further expansion."
AccessClosure, a privately held company that launched in 2002, gets to reach a much larger customer base with the sale. Its Mynx vascular closure devices help physicians seal the femoral artery using a secure, dissolvable sealant, and the company generates about $80 million in annual sales, according to the deal announcement. AccessClosure President and CEO Gregory Casciaro said in a statement that becoming part of Cardinal Health will lead to more rapid growth.
He said that Cardinal Health's existing scale (33,000 employees globally) and structure will help "grow this business more rapidly and meet the needs of our current and future customers."
AccessClosure got past a major patent battle late last year that could have thrown a wrench into the deal. St. Jude Medical ($STJ) had sued AccessClosure over its Mynx device, alleging it infringed on three patents. The company must still pay $27.1 million for infringing on two patents that appear to have expired in 2010. But an appeals court declined to reconsider a September decision that invalidated the third patent due to double patenting (involving the Janzen patents), handing AccessClosure a major victory.
In a statement at the time, Casciaro said: "The timely decision allows the AccessClosure team to finally put this dispute behind us and enter 2014 with a clear focus on developing and delivering innovative, patient-friendly closure solutions." Its sale to Cardinal Health is expected to close by early June 2014, and presumably, it will help it accomplish this goal by becoming part of a healthcare services giant.
- read the release