The American medical company Kyphon, specializing in minimally invasive treatments for spinal fractures, bought Israeli start-up Disc-o-Tech Medical Technologies from Herzliya at a sum of USD 240 million.
Disc-o-Tech is involved in the development, production and marketing of orthopedic implants.
Kyphon will pay Disc-o-Tech USD 60 million up front, with another USD 40 million in 2007 with the transfer of the BTwin and SKy Bone products. Another USD 120 million will be transferred in three payments in 2008.
Kyphon is currently traded on NASDAQ at a value of USD 1.8 billion.
In the past, Kyphon and Disk-o-Tech have butted heads in court over allegations of patent violations. Kyphon claimed that Disc-o-Tech violated a patent and the Delaware district court prohibited Disc-o-Tech from marketing one of its products- the SKy bone Expander - in the US.
Disc-o-Tech was founded in 1998 by Oren Globerman and Dr. Motty Biar. The investors in the company are Louis Pell and Prof. Shlomo Ben-Haim, who have a record of successful "exits" in the area of life sciences.
The two were involved in purchases of companies which totaled USD 1 billion including the selling of Biosense to Johnson & Johnson in 1997 for USD 400 million in shares, selling of Instant to Medtronic in 1996, selling of Heart Technolgy to Boston Scientific in 1995, and the selling of X-Technologies to Guidenet.
In addition, the two have holdings in Impulse Dynamics of Tirat Hacarmel and Radiancy of Yavneh.