Fountain Valley-based Alpine Biomed Corp. encourages sleeping on the job.
The company is making a push into devices that diagnose sleeping disorders after acquiring a Canadian medical device maker last month.
Alpine bought Montreal-based Stellate Systems Inc. for undisclosed terms.
Stellate makes neurodiagnostic systems, including those for sleeping disorders. Hospitals, clinics and universities in more than 30 countries use the devices.
Buying Stellate “is in line with the strategic plan that we had put in place,” said John Arnott, Alpine’s chief executive.
In 2007, Water Street Healthcare Partners LLC, a Chicago private equity firm with more than $1 billion under management, spent $50 million for a majority stake in Alpine.
Arnott, a native of Scotland who formerly worked for Hospira Inc., a Chicago area company that spun out of Abbott Laboratories, became Alpine’s chief executive around that time.
Alpine makes medical devices geared toward the digestive system and the brain.
Products include the Digitrapper pH 400, used to diagnose and monitor acid reflux disease; the Keypoint, for diagnosing carpal tunnel syndrome; and Harmonie-S, a sleep disorder diagnostic machine that Alpine acquired through Stellate.
Water Street Healthcare is looking to build Alpine as a provider of specialty diagnostics, said Ned Villers, a partner at the private equity firm and an Alpine director.
Alpine picked a large market to target,the company estimates that some 40 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders.
The yearly market for devices and drugs to treat and diagnose one sleep disorder, sleep apnea, is estimated at $1 billion, according to market researcher Frost & Sullivan of San Antonio.
Arnott declined to disclose Alpine’s yearly revenue. Sleep problem diagnostics are growing in the double digits each year, he said, compared with high single-digits for gastroenterology and neurology.
Alpine’s competitors include Natus Medi-cal Inc., a public company based in the Bay area, Viasys Healthcare, now a division of Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health Inc. and Japan’s Nihon Kohden Corp.
Alpine has no immediate plans to go public or be acquired, Arnott said.
“Right now, our focus is to establish the company,” he said.
Alpine uses its own salespeople and distributors to get its devices to customers. The company sells its products in about 50 countries.
Alpine has 260 workers, including 50 in Fountain Valley. The company makes products in Fountain Valley, Canada, Denmark and Vietnam.
