Cook Medical sells portion of reproductive health business for $300M

Bloomington-based Cook Medical is offloading a portion of its reproductive health and otolaryngology business in a $300 million deal with California-based CooperCompanies, the company announced Wednesday.

The move comes three months after a proposed $875 million sale of Cook’s entire reproductive health business to Cooper was called off.

The medical device manufacturer has sold select products from its maternal fetal medicine portfolio, as well as gynecological surgical products and Doppler monitor technology. Cook says the products involved in the deal represent about 2.5% of its overall sales.

Pete Yonkman, president of Cook Medical and parent Cook Group, said in a news release that the sale is in alignment with the company’s five-year strategic plan.

“Our vision is to get back to what we were founded on, delivering a continuous stream of innovative new products and services to address unmet customer needs. Reaching this vision requires careful planning, a lot of hard work, and deliberate choices including a full review of our product portfolio to ensure strategic fit for the future,” Yonkman said. “This agreement will allow us to invest in future growth and new technologies while also allowing the new Cooper product lines to thrive and meet patients’ needs around the world.”

Cook said it will continue to manufacture the products for at least two years, with manufacturing transferring to Cooper subsidiary CooperSurgical during that time.

The company specified that no manufacturing jobs will be negatively affected by the sale.

Cook Medical was previously set to sell its entire reproductive health business to CooperCompanies in an $875 million deal originally announced in February. However, the Federal Trade Commission said in August that Cooper had terminated the deal for undisclosed reasons.

At the time, the FTC said in a statement the move was a “win” for patients by ensuring “critical reproductive health markets remain competitive.”

Cook Group is Indiana’s fourth-largest private company with $2.36 billion in revenue last year, according to IBJ research. The company employs more than 11,500 people, including over 6,000 in Indiana.