ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the acquisition of Medos Medizintechnik AG by the private equity fund Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn (“Future Fund of Heilbronn”) the company will cooperate closely in the future with Novalung GmbH (Heilbronn, Germany), which is expected to strengthen both medical device companies.
The Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn (zfhn) announced that it has acquired Medos Medizintechnik AG from Ventizz Capital Partners Advisory AG. The purchase agreement was signed on January 7, 2011. With this acquisition, medical device technology has become the most important sector for the private equity fund. Thomas Villinger, Managing Director of the zfhn, explained the decision behind this acquisition: “The medical device sector is characterized by solid growth and is independent of economic cycles.” He noted further that, “Medos and Novalung are technological leaders in different markets, namely cardiac support and lung support. Their innovative technologies complement one another extremely well, and a close cooperation will enable even better utilization and speed up further developments.”
Dr. Volker Hamm, who has been named to join the Medos Management Board, noted with pleasure: “We are very happy about this development. Novalung’s excellent market know-how in the field of lung support will provide a much broader customer base for our high-tech products.” Hamm also noted that Christian Palme will join Thomas Villinger on the Supervisory Board of Medos. The Medos facilities in Stolberg und Radeberg will continue their operations after the acquisition.
Dr. Georg Matheis, Managing Director of Novalung GmbH since its founding eight years ago, emphasized that Novalung, after thousands of treatments using the company’s artificial lung, the iLA Membrane Ventilator®, has firmly established itself. “The innovative therapy for the treatment of lung failure without invasive mechanical ventilation is now well accepted,” the former cardiothoracic surgeon noted. “In order to further expand our market leadership as the pioneering company in this field, we will develop a full product portfolio in 2011. With the cooperation with Medos this can be accomplished more quickly than we originally expected.” Matheis also pointed to the newest member of Novalung’s executive management team, Josef Bogenschutz, who left medical device company Maquet and joined Novalung just a few weeks earlier. “In addition to strong leadership, Josef Bogenschutz brings with him great expertise in the development and manufacturing of artificial lungs. With him on board we are ideally positioned to aggressively develop additional innovative solutions for the replacement of invasive mechanical ventilation. Together, and with the support of our clinical partners, we will realize the vision of increasingly avoiding the damage of invasive mechanical ventilation.”
Bogenschutz, who most recently drove the successful growth of Maquet Cardiopulmonary AG as President and CEO, is equally optimistic concerning the expansion of the zfhn portfolio. “I am pleased that this new cooperation provides so many areas of synergy for both companies. We will jointly leverage our know-how in the high-end cleanroom manufacturing of artificial lungs to further optimize our manufacturing efficiencies.” He also presented Novalung’s core strategy to intensify the company’s research and development activities and to further expand sales in the core markets in Europe and the USA.
Background information
Future Fund Heilbronn
Being a venture capital company, the Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn (future fund, short: ZFHN), founded in 2006, supports the development of young and technology based companies from the very first beginning when starting off with an innovative idea towards a successful enterprise. The focus is on promising sectors such as life science, IT, energy, industrial and environmental technology. The companies are accompanied by the ZFHN in a long run and established in the economic region of Heilbronn. Strengths of the Zukunftsfonds, in addition to its managers’ and directors’ high competence in economy, are the excellent connections to the regional and international economy.
Novalung GmbH
Novalung’s mission is to create new solutions for the treatment of lung failure with innovative artificial lungs that “breathe” outside the patient’s body. Instead of placing patients in an artificial coma so that they can tolerate mechanical ventilation, Novalung products enable the patients to rather experience their treatment while being awake, mobile and breathing easily. Founded in 2003, the German company Novalung GmbH operates on a highly international level in order to establish new solutions for lung failure. These advanced technologies from Germany and the U.S. were brought into the company and developed further. From the outset Novalung has focused on high-quality development and production “Made in Germany”. Cutting-edge technologies are employed in Novalung’s medtech production facility in the manufacture in particular of the iLA Membrane Ventilator® and NovaPort® vascular access cannulas, both of which have been used to help treat thousands of patients.
Medos GmbH
Medos is a leading German medium-sized high-tech medical technology company that develops, manufactures and distributes medical devices for cardiac surgery and similar applications. The product portfolio consist of MEDOS tubing sets as basis and in-house developments as HILITE® oxygenators and reservoirs, the RHEOPARIN® coating (heparin), the DELTASTREAM® series, the MEDOS VAD system with divers ventricles and cannulas as well as a MEDOS cannula program.
SOURCE Novalung, Inc.
