Acquisitions In Brief
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Disc-O-Tech spine asset shuffle: Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy Spine on Nov. 5 announces a definitive agreement to acquire Israeli firm Disc-O-Tech Medical Technologies' Confidence system and next-generation cement delivery products in development for treatment of vertebral compression fractures. The divestiture was required by the Federal Trade Commission as part of antitrust clearance of Kyphon's December 2006 agreement to acquire Disc-O-Tech's spine technologies. Other Disc-O-Tech spine assets now belong to Medtronic, which completed its $4.2 billion acquisition of Kyphon ahead of expectations on Nov. 2 (1"The Gray Sheet" Sept. 17, 2007, In Brief). Terms of DePuy's agreement were not disclosed, but Kyphon had planned to pay $120 million for Confidence plus contingent payments (2"The Gray Sheet" Jan. 1, 2007, p. 8)