Private Equity Group Buys Swedish Home Health Firm from GE Healthcare

PBM Capital Group, a healthcare-focused private investment firm, acquired Breas Medical AB from GE Healthcare. Breas, headquartered in Sweden, manufactures home respiratory ventilators and sleep apnea products for the global home healthcare market. The company employs more than 100 people in nine countries and operates a 30,000-square-foot manufacturing and office facility in Sweden.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PBM Capita, based in Charlottesville, Va., will integrate Breas into Human Design Medical (HDM) in Boston, Mass., one of its existing holdings. HDM is a lifestyle medical device company focusing on the treatment of sleep apnea. HDM launched the Z1 continuous positive airway pressure (commonly knows as CPAP) machine. The company claims the Z1 is the world’s smallest and lightest CPAP machine.

According to the National Institutes of Health, untreated sleep apnea can increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart failure, heart attack, stroke, obesity and diabetes. Sleep apnea makes irregular heartbeats more likely and increases the risk of having work-related or driving accidents.

“We acquired Breas because it is a logical fit with our growing HDM sleep apnea business,” said PBM Capital Group CEO Paul B. Manning. “The Z1 CPAP machine has had an incredible launch here in the United States, and we have more innovative products in the pipeline. The Breas acquisition opens the door to global distribution channels and gives us immediate access to an established line of home care ventilators backed by a strong IP (intellectual property) portfolio. We are very excited to merge these two great companies.”

According to Manning, the combined companies will continue to innovate by developing new products or acquiring additional respiratory product companies that will extend their reach into the global home respiratory products market.

Breas Medical AB was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1991, and was acquired by GE Healthcare in 2008.

The global sleep apnea market is expected to be worth $19.72 billion by 2017, according to a report by Dallas, Texas-based research firm MarketsandMarkets. That’s more than double the value of the market in 2011, which was estimated to be $7.96 billion.

The United States is the largest market for sleep apnea products, followed by Europe and then Asia.