A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) said it has agreed to acquire Panomics (Fremont, California), a company that offers a suite of assay products for a wide variety of low to mid-plex genetic, protein and cellular analysis applications, for about $73 million in cash. The acquisition will strengthen Affymetrix' position in high-growth validation and routine-testing market segments, the company said. The combination will also enable a more complete customer workflow, beginning with whole-genome Affymetrix microarray studies and then focusing on genes and proteins of interest with the Panomics products, Affymetrix noted.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

In other dealmaking activity:

• Invitrogen (Carlsbad, California) and Applied Biosystems (Norwalk, Connecticut) reported receiving clearance from the European Commission for the companies' pending $6.7 billion merger. This represents the last regulatory approval needed for the completion of the merger, the companies said. The deal, which was first reported in June is expected to close Nov. 21.

• Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Massachusetts) said it has acquired Raymond A. Lamb (Eastbourne, UK), a maker of histology and anatomical pathology products.

Raymond A. Lamb had revenues of about $9 million in 2007, and will be integrated into Thermo Fisher's Analytical Technologies Segment, the company said.

Thermo Fisher Scientific says it has annual revenues of $10 billion and that it serves customers within pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, as well as environmental and industrial process control settings.

• Mediscience Technology (Cherry Hill, New Jersey), said its subsidiary, BioScopix (New York), has acquired SensiVida Medical Systems (Rochester, New York), a diagnostic device company.

According to the company, SensiVida's Microsystems-based technology automates bio-sensing and data acquisition while minimizing patient discomfort. Its platform technology is designed to address a number of disease-state diagnostics, including allergy testing, pain-free automated glucose monitoring without bio-fouling, blood coagulation tests, TB testing, and cholesterol monitoring.

SensiVida's product pipeline, based on the same technology, includes a portable glucose monitor. This device consists of a patch or chip having multiple, individually addressable sensors that are activated in accordance with the patient's test schedule, automatically recording the patient's glucose level without pain, bio-fouling or clogging, the company said.

The company also reported that the president/CEO of Mediscience/BioScopix and the newly merged company will be Kamal Sarbadhikari, the current CEO of SensiVida, and the CTO and VP of all business development will be Jose Mir, current CTO of SensiVida.