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Radiology firm bought; fate of 70 workers ‘to be determined’

By Tom Sowa toms@spokesman.com(509) 459-5492

A Minnesota company on Wednesday officially bought NightHawk Radiology, once one of North Idaho’s fast-rising tech firms.

Virtual Radiologic’s purchase of NightHawk was approved Wednesday as NightHawk shareholders voted to take the offer of $6.50 per share, or about $170 million.

Both companies provide teleradiology services, using doctors in a number of time zones who remotely look at medical images and provide quick readings of those tests for doctors, clinics and hospitals.

Les Mann, Virtual Radiologic’s vice president of sales and marketing, said it’s unclear what will occur with the remaining 70 NightHawk employees working in Coeur d’Alene. Those are the workers who stayed after the company moved the NightHawk main office to Scottsdale, Ariz., earlier this year. Nationwide, NightHawk has about 300 positions.

“That question (about NightHawk jobs) is in the to-be-determined category,” Mann said. The evaluation of which jobs need to be in Idaho or Minnesota will start after the first of the year, he added.

With the merger the company has about 325 radiologists, and about 75 percent of those are subspecialists, Mann said. Subspecialists are trained in specific medical areas, such as pediatric or head and neck.

The two companies began discussing the acquisition earlier this year, Mann said.

The acquisition also makes vRad the largest teleradiology company in the country, Mann noted. Company radiologists will serve nearly 2,700 health care facilities across the country and will probably read more than 7 million studies per year, a press release said.

NightHawk was launched in 2001 in Coeur d’Alene by Dr. Paul Berger, his brother Jon Berger and partner Chris Huber. In 2004 Summit Partners, a major venture capital partnership, invested $25 million in the company. NightHawk was able to sign numerous contracts for remote radiology by hiring doctors to read tests across the globe, including Australia and Europe.

NightHawk became a publicly traded company in 2006.