I-Flow Acquires AcryMed for $25M

Beaverton-based AcryMed Inc. has parlayed its expertise in wound care and fighting infections into a lucrative buyout by a publicly traded California medical device maker. The purchase is an uncommon — but not unprecedented — payday arising from Oregon’s small life-sciences industry. I-Flow Corp. of Lake Forest, Calif., agreed to pay $25 million in cash to acquire privately held AcryMed. With a staff of 43, AcryMed expects to continue operating under the same name, with the same executives at its recently expanded headquarters on Nimbus Avenue. “To the best of our ability, we’re going to grow the company in Beaverton,” said Jack McMaken, AcryMed’s chief executive officer and president. McMaken and company founder Bruce Gibbins own the majority of AcryMed’s shares along with Chief Financial Officer John Calhoun and investor James Fee Jr. I-Flow was the first company to see the value in a new infection-fighting coating developed by AcryMed. The Beaverton firm had focused on wound dressings since its beginning in 1993. But two years ago, Gibbins and his researchers found a reliable way to incorporate germ-killing silver into materials used in surgically implanted devices and catheters, tubes inserted into the body to infuse drugs or drain fluids. Implants lead to thousands of infections annually in the U.S. The coating they developed, SilvaGard, sticks to elastic materials even after stretching and flexing. The coating’s stickiness and other exotic properties derive from the fact that it consists of silver atoms clumped into extremely small particles. Since 2006, five other companies have signed deals with AcryMed to use the coating on medical products, and others are pending, McMaken said. “We’re just barely scratching the surface in applications for our SilvaGard technology,” he said. I-Flow’s chairman and chief executive, Donald Earhart, said the acquisition advances the company’s plan to expand into wound-care products. McMaken said the deal allows AcryMed to continue its research and development in wound care, but with the benefit of I-Flow’s worldwide sales, marketing and distribution system. “It offered a pretty good return on investment,” McMaken said, “and at the same time allows us to continue to do what we do well, and do it better.” The two companies expect to close the sale during the first quarter of this year. SOURCE: The Oregonian