ORANGE COUNTY

Irvine’s Sorin to Sell Part of Division: Sorin Biomedical Inc. in Irvine said Wednesday that it plans to sell part of its Irvine-based medical products division to a St. Louis company in a deal to be completed later this year. Sorin’s tracheostomy division will be sold to Mallinckrodt Medical Inc. in a transaction valued at $84.1 million. Sorin, a unit of Fiat SpA in Turin, Italy, will keep its cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary and diagnostic products divisions. Sorin spokesman T.C. Newman said that the tracheostomy division “was not synergistic to the core businesses.” Newman said that about half of Sorin’s 750 employees were in the tracheostomy division and will remain in Irvine “for the foreseeable future” under the Mallinckrodt name. The division makes artificial breathing products for the trachea, commonly known as the windpipe. Sorin bought the Irvine operations from Shiley Inc. earlier this year.