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Spacelabs Healthcare (), based in Issaquah, Washington, is a global manufacturer and distributer of medical devices and services. Business units include patient monitoring, anesthesia delivery, and medical solutions (Ambulatory Blood Pressure solutions, Bone Densometers, etc.). Spacelabs Healthcare was incorporated in 2005 by majority owner OSI Systems () to combine their various aquired medical business units including Spacelabs Medical, Blease Medical, Dolphin Medical, and Osteometer. In summer of 2006, Spacelabs acquired the Del Mar Reynolds division of Ferraris Group plc ().
Spacelabs Medical History Spacelabs Medical was founded in 1958 by Ben Ettelson and James Reeves to develop equipment for monitoring the vital signs of astronauts. During the 1960's the company's focus shifted towards developing monitoring systems for hospitals and developed a reputation for being extremely innovative. In 1980, pharmaceutical giant, Squibb Medical acquired Spacelabs and moved operations to Redmond, Washington. In 1986, Spacelabs, along with the imaging systems unit Adanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) were spun off to form Westmark International Inc. In 1992, Westmark spun off Spacelabs Medical under CEO Carl A. Lombardi and it began trading on NASDAQ under the symbol SLMD. (ATL was acquired by Philips Medical Systems shortly therafter). Through the 1990's, Spacelabs made several acquisitions to grow its product offerings including: First Medical Devices Corp. (heart defibrillators), Consolidated Peritronics Medical, Inc. (perinatal information systems), Advanced Medical Systems, and its largest purchase, Madison, Wisconsin based Burdick. The early 2000's brought tough times to Spacelabs. Faced with a downturn in the business, the company drifted into the red with losses reported almost every quarter. In November 2000, Cardiac Science attempted a hostile takeover with a $143 million offer, but did not succeed. In 2002 Spacelabs was sold to Helsinki, Finland based Instrumentarium, which trimmed the company, selling off Burdick to Quinton Cardiology Systems (later acquired by Cardiac Science) and other "non-core" divisions. In this same time period, Spacelabs sold their headquarters to Microsoft, and moved operations to a smaller facility in nearby Issaquah. In 2003 GE_Healthcare purchased Instrumentarium. To satisfy concerns raised by regulatory agencies about what would be the combination of 3 of the world's largest medical monitoring companies (Spacelabs, GE, and Instrumentarium's Datex-Ohmeda division), GE was forced to divest Spacelabs. OSI Systems purchased Spacelabs Medical in 2004. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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