Kimberly-Clark Corporation, perhaps best known for consumer goods like Kleenex and Depends, has announced it will buy drug-pump maker I-Flow Corporation for around $324 million.

In a statement released Friday, Kimberly-Clark said I-Flow would join its health care division, which accounts for around six percent of the company's total global $19.4 billion in sales.

Kay Jackson, a spokesperson for Kimberly-Clark, tells DOTmed News that the purchase of I-Flow, which makes the ON-Q post-op pain-management pumps, is part of Kimberly-Clark's strategy to get into higher-margin medical devices. In fact, the deal follows closely on the heels of a related Kimberly-Clark acquisition. Just last Monday, Kimberly-Clark picked up a division of Baylis Medical, a device company that makes, among other things, anti-pain probes for use in back surgery.

As for I-Flow, Jackson says the company, which sees around $133 million in annual sales, offers products that complement Kimberly-Clark HealthCare's own lines of feeding tubes, placements kits, infection control products and airway management devices.

"They have a highly trained sales force," she says. "We feel that because we have complementary products, their sales team will help us...[reach] physicians."

Jackson can't comment on what this means for Kimberly-Clark's overall financial picture, as they're set to report their earnings next week.

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