The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice
The “For Sale” sign officially went up outside Millipore Corp. (NYSE:MIL).
Responding to speculation that it’s the target of a $6 billion buyout offer, executives at the Billerica, Mass.-based maker of bioscience equipment late Feb. 23 confirmed they hired Goldman Sachs to assist them in “evaluating strategic alternatives, including pursuing a process with potential bidders to explore a possible merger or sale of the company.”
Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. (NYSE:IMA) launched another tender offer for Standard Diagnostics (KDQ:066930), looking to add to the 61.9 percent stake it already holds in the Korean firm.
Earlier this month the Waltham, Mass.-based diagnostics and lab equipment maker closed its second tender offer for Standard Diagnostics shares, which saw it bid about $35.72 per share for 75.79 percent or just more than 6 million shares of the company.
Amicas Inc. (NSDQ:AMCS) and Merge Healthcare Inc. (NSDQ:MRGE) are fighting a war of words over Merge’s unsolicited offer to buy out the Boston-based imaging data management firm, which hopes instead to consummate a deal it already has with Thoma Bravo LLC.
Yesterday, Amicas called the Merge offer of $6.05 per share, or about $248 million, "risky" and "illusory," despite being a roughly 13 percent premium over the private equity firm’s ofer opf $5.35 per share (about $217 million).
Millipore Corp. (NYSE:MIL) shares soared as much as 43 percent today after news reports that Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) is considering a $6 billion unsolicited bid for the Billerica, Mass.-based company.
Bloomberg News, citing a person familiar with the situation, said Millipore recently hired Goldman Sachs as its financial adviser after receiving the bid and that a deal could be agreed on as early as next week. The news service said the person did not want to be identified because the talks are not yet public.
By Mary Vanac
ATHENS, Ohio — San Diego diagnostic test maker Quidel Corp. (NSDQ:QDEL) closed its acquisition of Diagnostic Hybrids Inc. for about $130 million in cash.
NeuroTherm Inc. added to its portfolio of pain management technologies with the acquisition of some of a European company’s needle lines.
The Wilmington, Mass.-based medical device maker paid an undisclosed amount for Dutch firm Technomed Europe’s intellectual property and manufacturing know-how "associated with certain needle product lines," according to a press release.
NeuroTherm bought Micron Catheter last summer for an undisclosed amount, adding the Palm Beach gardens, Fla.-based company’s epidural scar removal catheter to its holdings.
Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. (NYSE:IMA) agreed to pay $110 million in cash for Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. (NYSE: MMC) subsidiary Kroll Inc.’s substance abuse testing lab.
It’s the latest in a series of strategic moves for the Waltham, Mass.-based diagnostics and lab equipment maker, which has been on a buying (and selling) spree so far this year.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO) agreed to pay an unspecified amount for Finnish polymerase chain reaction equipment maker Finnzyme, in a bid to bolster one of its own recent PCR assay offerings.
The Waltham, Mass.-based lab equipment maker said it inked the deal to acquire Espoo, Finland-based Finnzyme because that company’s proprietary DNA polymerases, Phire and Phusion, complement its own Solaris line of real-time quantitative PCR assays. The deal is expected to close during the first quarter.
Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. (NYSE:IMA) is hitting the acquisitions trail hard in 2010.
The Waltham, Mass.-based diagnostics and lab equipment maker closed its deal to buy a three-quarters stake in Korean rapid diagnostics maker Standard Diagnostics (KDQ:066930) for up to $216.6 million.
Inverness bid about $35.72 per share for 75.79 percent or just more than 6 million shares of Standard Diagnostics, provided that at least roughly 2.4 million shares, or 30 percent of the total issued, were tendered.
Thoratec Corp. (NSDQ:THOR) has struck a deal to acquire catheter-pump technology from a Swedish company for $8.5 million in cash.
The percutaneous heart pump first developed by Getinge AB (OMX:GIND-B) is driven by an external motor using a flexible drive shaft and has shown the ability to move over 4.5 liters per minute during laboratory tests. Executives at Pleasanton, Calif.-based Thoratec said the acquired technology will be used to further development on axial-flow pumps that would be placed into the heart through minimally invasive catheter procedures.
Spire Corp. (NSDQ:SPIR) closed the sale of its hemodialysis catheter business to a division of C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) Dec. 16, after postponing the merger several times and agreeing to accept $2.5 million less than the original offer.
In September 2009, Spire agreed to sell the seven-year-old operation to the Salt Lake City-based device maker’s Bard Access Systems division for $15 million, so it could focus on its core solar energy business.
