• Cantel Medical (Little Falls, New Jersey) said it has acquired the business and substantially all of the assets of Byrne Medical (Houston), a private company that manufactures an array of disposable infection control products intended to replace the necessity of sterilizing and reusing numerous components used in gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures for $100 million. The purchase price was comprised of $90 million in cash and 401, 123 shares of restricted Cantel stock (valued at $10 million) that is subject to a multi-year lock-up and three-year price floor. In addition, there is a contingent earnout of up to $10 million payable over two years based on gross profit growth targets of the acquired business. Cantel will also be purchasing certain land and buildings utilized by the Byrne Medical business for $5.9 million.

• Emdeon (Nashville, Tennessee), a provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management and clinical information exchange solutions, has entered into a definitive merger agreement with Blackstone Capital Partners VI (New York) under which this Blackstone fund will acquire a controlling interest in Emdeon in a transaction valued at approximately $3 billion that will result in Emdeon becoming a private company. Hellman & Friedman will maintain a significant minority equity interest in Emdeon. Holders of Emdeon common stock will receive $19 per share in cash.

• Fresenius Medical Care (FMC; Frankfurt, Germany) is planning to acquire Liberty Dialysis Holdings (Washington) for $1.7 billion, including about $1 billion in assumed debt and American Access Care Holdings (Glen, Pennsylvania) which operates 28 vascular access centers for preparing patients for dialysis, for $385 million. The two acquisitions have a combined price tag of $2.09 billion and would make FMC one of the largest dialysis companies in the U.S. The Liberty Dialysis deal is expected to be completed in early 2012, although FMC said it may have to divest facilities to secure regulatory approval. The American Access Care acquisition is expected to close in 4Q11.

• Kindred Healthcare (Louisville, Kentucky) reported that its subsidiary has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the equity of Professional HealthCare (PH; San Francisco), a portfolio company of Mainsail Partners, for a purchase price of $51 million in cash. PH is a provider of home health, hospice, private duty nursing services and durable medical equipment. The company expects to finance the transaction with operating cash flows and proceeds from its revolving credit facility. PH will have no outstanding long-term debt at closing.

• KPS Capital Partners (New York) has signed a definitive agreement to sell its portfolio company, Attends Healthcare (Greenville, North Carolina), to Domtar (Montreal, Canada) for $315 million in cash. Completion of the transaction, which is expected during the third quarter, is subject to customary closing conditions. Attends Healthcare makes a line of adult incontinence products for the North American marketplace that are sold primarily under the Attends brand name.

Investors at Neoprobe's (Dublin, Ohio) annual meeting approved the sale of the company's handheld gamma radiation detector business. The buyer is Devicor Medical Products (Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin) which is paying $27.3 million in cash and pledging up to $20 million in future royalties through the deal, which was disclosed in May. Neoprobe makes precision diagnostics that enhance patient care and improve patient benefit.

• Qiagen (Venlo, the Netherlands) has entered into a partnership with Pfizer (Germantown, Maryland) for the development of a companion molecular diagnostic test for use with an investigational Pfizer compound in global clinical development for treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

• OraSure Technologies (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) will acquire privately-held DNA Genotek (Ottawa), a provider of oral fluid sample collection, stabilization and preparation products for molecular diagnostic applications, for about $53 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments. The transaction is anticipated to close in 3Q11. OraSure says this acquisition strengthens its leadership in oral fluid diagnostics, by providing the company with a complementary portfolio of products that enable easy and reliable collection, stabilization, transportation and storage of high quality nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) samples.

• Symmetry Medical (Warsaw, Indiana), a maker of medical device solutions, including orthopedic implants, surgical instruments, and sterilization cases and trays, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Olsen Medical (Louisville, Kentucky), a maker of electrosurgical instruments and accessories. Olsen makes a line of single-use and reusable bipolar and monopolar forceps, cords, electrosurgical pens/pencils, electrodes, and accessories.

• Thoratec (Pleasanton, California) has acquired the medical business of Levitronix (Waltham, Massachusetts) for an upfront cash payment of $110 million, as well as potential future cash earnout payments of up to $40 million. Thoratec claims this transaction solidifies its position as the leading, full-line provider of mechanical circulatory support products for both acute and chronic needs, advancing the company's mission of delivering superior therapies to a broad population of heart failure patients.

• Ventana Medical Systems (Oro Valley, Arizona), a Roche (Basel, Switzerland) company, said Roche will acquire mtm laboratories (Heidelberg, Germany) for €130 million ($180 million) upfront and up to roughly €60 million ($85 million) in milestone payments. mtm makes in vitro diagnostics with a focus on early detection and diagnosis of cervical cancer, the largest early detection market in oncology. mtm will become part of Roche's Tissue Diagnostics (Ventana) business unit.