August 17th, 2009
Will XTent go whole or in pieces?
Partric Carlsson of Gerbsman Partners, an investment bank specializing in health care and its intellectual property, has posted its “for sale” sign on the assets of XTent Inc., the adjustable stent operator that said it would go out of business last month.
The assets will be sold as-is, on site, as if this were a sporting goods store that went under. Gerbsman will sell in pieces or it will sell the whole thing. Whatever is best for the debtors. (If Gerbsman really wants to bring in the customers they need a sign like this one, from eSigns.)
The filing makes all the claims for XTent’s stents that the company did in life. They’re adjustable. They send out medicine as nanoparticles. They have conditional IDE approval from the FDA. The company has 31 U.S. patents, 11 international patents, 57 more U.S. and 99 more international patent applications in the pipeline.
All of which makes this more interesting than your common sporting good store sale. (Cue the guy in the gorilla costume twirling a sign.)
The intellectual property held by this company could cause the industry a lot of grief down the road if it gets cut in pieces, or goes to some patent troll.
What are the odds on that happening?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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