ICU Medical Inc. in San Clemente said it would buy New York-based Pfizer Inc.’s infusion therapy division in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $1 billion.
ICU Medical makes and sells devices used in infusion therapy—the pumps, tubes and catheters that connect patients in hospital beds to medicine and other products in bottles and plastic bags.
Pfizer makes and sells drugs and vaccines. It owns the infusion therapy unit as a result of its $16 billion purchase of Lake Forest, Ill.-based drugmaker Hospira in September 2015 and said at the time that it planned to sell the infusion therapy business.
The acquisition makes ICU Medical a “pure-play infusion business with the focus and scale to compete globally,” Chief Executive Vivek Jain said in a statement.
The unit was ICU’s biggest customer, and the buy “eliminate(s) our single-customer concentration issue,” Jain said.
The acquisition will nearly quadruple ICU’s revenue. It had about $342 million in sales last year; the new company projects combined revenue of about $1.45 billion.
ICU shares were up in the immediate wake of the deal.
—Paul Hughes
