Covidien ($COV) sure has been busy lately, particularly in Israel. Last month, the company agreed to buy superDimension, a maker of minimally invasive interventional pulmonology devices, for $300 million plus. And now this morning, the company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Jerusalem-based Oridion Systems in a deal valued at about $346 million.
Covidien plans to integrate the company as a center of excellence in capnography (the monitoring of the concentration or partial pressure of carbon dioxide in respiratory gases) within its medical devices segment. Oridion, which specializes in safety monitoring and develops proprietary medical devices and patient interfaces, had 2011 sales of $64 million, according to a release. The deal, which is structured as a merger, is expected to close in the second quarter.
The deal will be voted on by shareholders at Oridion's extraordinary general meeting next month. But the companies are already touting the positives of the deal. "The acquisition of Oridion Systems adds a key monitoring technology to the Covidien portfolio," said Robert White, Covidien's president of respiratory & monitoring systems, in a release. "Oridion's products and etCO2 technology are excellent complements to the company's current portfolio of pulse oximeters and monitoring products, enabling us to offer a complete portfolio of solutions to monitor respiratory function for patients around the world."
In a conference call, Oridion Chairman and CEO Alan Adler said the companies have similar business models and share many OEM partners. It was also revealed during the call that Covidien approached the company in the middle of 2011, and it was a non-competitive process, with the larger company offering an attractive deal.
The Israeli company is operating under an FDA import alert for its infant neonatal intubated carbon dioxide sampling lines. However, in January, the FDA narrowed the scope of the alert, which now only applies to infant neonatal intubated CO2 sampling lines.
- check out Covidien's release
- read the Oridion release