Weekend Rounds: Ricerca closes deal; EnteroMedics follows up

Some of the top stories at MedCity News this week:

’ Contract drug development organization Ricerca Biosciences LLC has completed its acquisition of the discovery and preclinical business of MDS Pharma Services, more than doubling its workforce and multiplying its global capabilities. Ricerca in Concord Township, Ohio, paid $35 million, less normal working capital and a two-year capital expenditure reserve.

’ In October 2009, EnteroMedics Inc. received the results of a key trial of EMPOWER, the only implantable neurostimulation device in the United States designed to treat obesity. The news was bad: patients receiving the therapy lost no more weight than patients implanted with a dummy device. But armed with fresh capital and encouraging talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Roseville, Minnesota, company hopes to conduct a follow up study next year, with an eye on FDA approval in 2012.

’ Executives of Cleveland, Ohio, biopharmaceutical company Athersys Inc. seemed more confident than ever this week that their stem cell therapy MultiStem could eventually be used to profoundly help patients recover from heart attack, stroke or leukemia. In a conference call with securities analysts, the executives also disclosed promising research on drug candidates to treat obesity and attention-related neurological conditions, such as narcolepsy.

’ Robert Fields, a partner and managing director at Breeden Capital Management and Breeden Partners, quietly resigned from the STERIS Corp. board for personal reasons last week. Normally, the resignation of a director causes few questions. However, Fields and Richard Breeden, the former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chief who has since become an investment manager and shareholder activist, are a special case.

’ The Ohio House overwhelmingly passed House Bill 314 — a proposal that authorizes registered nurses to determine and pronounce death. Under current state law, only physicians have the authority to pronounce death. That’s a potential problem, given the well-chronicled physician shortage that exists in the U.S., which is more acute in rural areas. Giving nurses this authority could help avoid prolonged waits for physicians to arrive and pronounce death.