Corporate Report: Lincare Holdings buys units of Gentiva Health Services

Home health services company Gentiva Health Services Inc. sold its respiratory therapy and medical equipment business units plus infusion therapy service to a subsidiary of Clearwater-based Lincare Holdings Inc. in an all-cash transaction. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The sale included 40 locations in seven states. The businesses generated revenue of about $55 million for the year preceding Sept. 27.

Gentiva, based in Atlanta, has been divesting non-core assets to focus on home health and hospice services targeted to seniors. Along with sales of other units in 2008, it divested branch offices specializing in pediatric and adult private duty services in March 2009.

“By simplifying our business, we are able to direct our resources in home health and hospice, including the continuing roll-out of our industry-leading specialty care programs and the completion of strategic acquisitions,” Gentiva CEO and president Tony Strange, said in a press release.

Lincare Holdings and its subsidiaries provide oxygen and other respiratory services to patients in their homes.

Brown & Brown company buys division of Insurance Exchange
A subsidiary of Daytona Beach- and Tampa-based Brown & Brown Inc. purchased the Insurance Exchange division of Insurance Exchange Inc. of Albuquerque.

The division generated annual revenues of about $2 million, and has sold commercial and personal, property and casualty insurance throughout New Mexico since 1975. It will join Brown & Brown's existing Albuquerque offices, led by Scott Jones.

Brown & Brown Inc. offers insurance and reinsurance products and services, plus risk management, third-party administration, managed health care and Medicare set-aside services and programs.

Romark Laboratories putting together drug study
Romark Laboratories, a biopharmaceutical company in Tampa, has started enrolling patients in a clinical trial of Alinia (nitazoxanide) for treating acute uncomplicated influenza including illness caused by the H1N1 strain.

The trial is being conducted in 25 sites nationwide and is expected to involve 440 adult influenza patients. It is designed to test that an oral nitazoxanide dose of 500 mg twice daily for five days will reduce the duration of symptoms of influenza and recovery time.

“We have been working quickly to initiate this clinical trial so that it can be conducted during the current flu season,” said Jean-François Rossignol, M.D., Ph.D., chief science officer of Romark, who discovered the new class of antiviral drugs called the thiazolides and has led the clinical development of nitazoxanide, in a press release, adding “If our results are favorable, we will move aggressively to complete a full development program.”

Romark is also developing nitazoxanide for treating a broad range of patients with chronic hepatitis C.

Syniverse works with Voxiva to help offer text4baby
Tampa communications integrator Syniverse Technologies will deliver free text messages for the new text4baby initiative, an educational program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.

Syniverse is working with Voxiva, who will provide the mobile healthcare platform, plus major mobile operators to offer the text message service for free to registered users.

Pregnant women and new mothers can sign up to receive messages with health information tailored to delivery date. Women opt in to the program by texting BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411. They then receive messages on such topics as birth defect prevention, immunization, nutrition, seasonal flu, mental health, oral health and safe sleep. Text4baby messages also connect women to prenatal and infant care services and other resources.

“Each year in the United States, more than 500,000 babies are born prematurely and an estimated 28,000 children die before their first birthday,” Tony Holcombe, president and CEO, Syniverse, said in a press release. “Text4baby is an excellent example of how mobile technology can make a positive impact on our society.”

Syniverse provides the mobile and SMS interoperability technology necessary to ensure messages can be delivered to recipients across a myriad of mobile operators and networks.

Text4baby is made possible through a broad, public-private partnership that also includes the White House Office on Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; founding partners HMHB, Grey HealthCare Group and CTIA-The Wireless Foundation; plus others.