Baxter Healthcare Corp. Wednesday announced plans to buy a San Diego company for $80 million, or $17.50 a share, that will allow the Deerfield-based company to help hospitals better manage the costs of open-heart surgery.
Baxter, a subsidiary of Baxter International Inc., has agreed to buy Psicor, whose shares trade on the Nasdaq market, in an all-cash deal.
“This acquisition strengthens our ability to offer customers a set of . . . fixed-cost products and services that will help hospitals manage the total cost of open-heart surgery,” said Lester B. Knight, executive vice president at Baxter.
Psicor employs more than 450 “perfusionists” and technicians who operate and service the heart-lung bypass machines used during open-heart surgery. The company had $82 million in sales in 1994.
About half the 800 to 900 hospitals in the U.S. that perform about 375,000 open-heart surgeries every year contract out for such services, the companies said in a release.
Baxter already provides other perfusion products, replacement heart valves and valve-repair products to hospitals. With the addition of Psicor, Baxter will be able to offer hospitals a wider range of services and products for open-heart surgery at a fixed cost. That should help hospitals better cope with the demands of managed-care contracts, company officials said.
