Covidien continued to carry out its pledge of dropping relatively underperforming businesses, turning over its U.S. radiopharmacy segment to Triad Isotopes, the company announced on Thursday.

Dublin, Ireland-based Covidien is handing over its network of 37 Mallinckrodt-brand radiopharmacies, which had net sales of around $180 million in fiscal 2009.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but Leerink Swann, a health care investment bank, believes they were probably relatively small because the business was not a highly profitable one, they said on Thursday in a newsletter.

The sale follows Covidien's stated policy of dropping sluggish segments while focusing on better-performing, higher-margin businesses, such as their surgical and energy-based device interests.

"We did say on our September 10 Analyst Day, in fiscal 2010-2011, we would be divesting businesses with revenues in the $200-$250 million dollar range, and this is a step in that direction," Bruce Farmer, a spokesman for Covidien, tells DOTmed News.

Already this year, Covidien shed its sleep diagnostic, sleep respiratory and oxygen therapy businesses.

Second-largest network

Orlando, Fla.-based Triad, a portfolio company of Parthenon Capital Partners, is set to become a major player on the U.S. radiopharmacy scene, and already runs 26 radiopharamcies and six cyclotrons in the southeast U.S.

"This addition will make Triad the second-largest radiopharmacy network in the U.S. and will better allow us to make a difference in the lives of the people we touch," Dom Meffe, CEO of Triad, said in a statement.

Triad says their combined network of radiopharmacies and cyclotrons will now number over 800 employees.

The transaction should be complete by second quarter 2010, pending closing conditions, Triad's gaining certain licenses and securing financing for the deal.

Read more on DOTmed:

Covidien Gains a New Aspect
www.dotmed.com/news/story/10319

Covidien Says Goodnight to Sandman
www.dotmed.com/news/story/10245

Triad Isotopes Announces Agreement to Acquire Covidien's U.S. Network of Mallinckrodt Radiopharmacies
www.dotmed.com/news/story/11029

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