Small Bone Innovations Inc. sold its shoulder-related assets to French orthopedics firm Fx Solutions for an undisclosed amount.
The New York-based company said it plans to focus on arthroplasty and trauma reconstruction technology and treatments for the small bones & joints. Proceeds from the sale are earmarked for streamlining “product management efforts and accelerate product introductions and launches” — especially its Star total ankle replacement, according to a press release. SBi will also “dedicate additional resources to fund clinical studies of key products,” according to the release.
“This sale enables the company to concentrate exclusively on its fast-growing small bone and joint product portfolio,” SBi chairman and CEO Anthony Viscogliosi said in prepared remarks. “SBi will focus its efforts on anatomies where we can achieve market leadership and also maximize our ability to address the needs of hospitals, surgeons and patients.”
Fx Solutions, based in Viriat, France, will use the SBi shoulder assets as the foundation of its product line. President Jean-Jacques Martin said the acquisition will help it plant its flag in the shoulder trauma repair sector.
“I believe that, with the innovative products we are acquiring from SBi as well as those in development, we will be able to advance the standard-of-care for shoulder fractures and trauma and successfully compete in the marketplace,” Martin said in prepared remarks.
SBi is one of several companies started by investment bank Viscogliosi Brothers LLC as rollups aimed at specific markets. Founded in 2004, SBi focused on acquiring small companies developing technologies for small bones and joints. The company has raised $156 million in a series of funding rounds, according to the release, from backers including Olympus Corp., Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Malaysia’s investment arm), the Malaysian Technology Development Corp., the Family Office of Bahrain, Viscogliosi Brothers LLC, Trevi Health Ventures, NGN Capital, 3i Group and TGap Ventures.
Another Viscogliosi-backed company, Centinel Spine Inc., is embroiled in a legal battle spanning the Atlantic Ocean with Paradigm BioDevices Inc. Last month Paradigm expanded its litigation against Centinel into the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, seeking to recoup a financial reward that the U.K. High Court ordered Viscogliosi to pay over a contract dispute.
The Chancery Division of London’s High Court of Justice ruled in August that Surgicraft, which became part of Centinel in a 2008 acquisition, must pay Paradigm BioSciences an unspecified amount after Surgicraft defaulted on the court’s prior order to pay interim damages, according to a press release. A final damages hearing in the High Court was held in the U.K. earlier this month and was not contested by the defendants, according to Paradigm BioDevices.
That company had sued Surgicraft in 2008, after the Redditch, England-based firm abruptly terminated Paradigm’s exclusive deal to distribute Surgicraft’s Stalif TT spinal fusion device.
In the latest round over the contract, the Rockland, Mass.-based orthopedic and spinal device maker is alleging successor liability, willful and tortious interference, unfair competition, deceptive and malicious business practices, fraud and default of the High Court order to pay monetary damages, according to a press release.
“Instead of honoring those covenants, an elaborate scheme was initiated by Centinel Spine, its directors and related interested parties to circumvent those obligations, breach our contract and defraud us of the rightful compensation due to us as ordered by the U.K. High Court earlier this year,” Paradigm BioDevices CEO Mike O’Neill said in prepared remarks.
O’Neill told MassDevice in August that the three-year contract with Surgicraft began in 2004 and contained a pair of two-year renewal options and a kill fee if Surgicraft decided to cancel the deal. O’Neill declined to specify how much the court ordered Surgicraft to pay.
