Given Imaging has purchased SmartPill's wireless GI monitoring system, designed for evaluating motility disorders such as gastroparesis and constipation, for $6m.
The FDA-approved and CE-marked non-imaging capsule system, which features a data recorder, is excreted naturally from the body usually within a day or two.
The data recorder downloads the collected data including pH rate, gastric emptying and total GI (stomach, small bowel and colon) transit times as well as pressure and temperature with in the GI tract.
Once the capsule has passed from the body, the patient returns the data recorder to the physician, who then uses the company’s MotiliGI software to analyze the data and provide test results in both graphical and report formats.
Massachusetts General Hospital Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory director and Harvard Medical School gastroenterology unit assistant physician Braden Kuo said SmartPill provides an ambulatory, patient-friendly and radiation-free alternative for patients suffering with challenging and painful symptoms of gastroparesis or chronic constipation.
"While SmartPill does not replace procedures like endoscopy and colonoscopy, it can replace multiple procedures used to assess gut transit requiring radiation exposure such as a timed Small Bowel Follow Through (SBFT), gastric emptying scintigraphy (GES) or sitzmarkers (ROM) which would be required to deliver the same clinical information," Kuo added.
Given Imaging president and CEO Homi Shamir said incorporating SmartPill into its business will strengthen its value proposition to gastroenterologists.
"We anticipate that this acquisition will have an immediate contribution to our top-line results and will be accretive to our bottom-line by the end of 2014," Shamir added.