A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Sunquest Information Systems (Tucson, Arizona) reported the completion of its acquisition of Anglia Healthcare Systems (AHSL; Norfolk, UK), which is now a subsidiary of Sunquest.

Sunquest signed a definitive agreement on Oct. 27 to acquire AHSL as part of its strategy to increase its global presence and strengthen its outreach and physician affinity strategy for the international market. The combination will allow Sunquest to create new business opportunities and facilitate better communications between hospitals, laboratories, physicians, communities, and patients as part of its efforts to deliver clinical data management solutions.

"We are pleased to welcome the Anglia customers and employees to the Sunquest family," said President/CEO Richard Atkin. "This is the beginning of a very exciting future together as we fulfill our mutual commitment to solutions innovation, market leadership, and industry-leading customer service. Together, we will set new standards for diagnostic information technology, with patients and the healthcare industry as the ultimate benefactors."

Sunquest's ICE portfolio includes clinical and demographic data and communication systems, which enable communication with all installed PAS, LIMS, RIS, and departmental systems. Systems are installed in 175 sites in the UK, Ireland and Denmark.

In other dealmaking news, Favrille (San Diego) and MyMedicalRecords.com (MMR; Los Angeles) reported the signing of a definitive merger agreement. The merged company will be focused on building and the MyMedicalRecords.com brand as the leading online personal health record (PHR) for consumers and health care professionals.

"We believe that the proposed merger of Favrille and MMR is consistent with our objective of offering our creditors and stockholders the best available outcome and will result in an organization that is uniquely positioned to fulfill an unmet need at this time when so much of the attention on healthcare costs in the U.S. is focused specifically on the burden of administrative costs and the widely-held belief that personal and electronic health records are crucial to reducing those costs," said John Longenecker, president/CEO of Favrille.

Favrille will acquire all of the capital stock of MMR in a stock-for-stock merger that would result in MMR becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Favrille with the existing equity holders of MMR owning about 64% of the equity of the combined company on a fully diluted basis.

Following the closing, the merged company's headquarters will be relocated to Los Angeles.

In other dealmaking activity, Invitrogen (Carlsbad, California) reported progress in the integration plans regarding its pending $6.7 billion acquisition of Applied Biosystems (AB; Foster City, California).

The company reported that three members of the AB board have been named to the board of the new company, effective upon closing. The new members are George Adam Jr., Arnold Levine, PhD; and William Longfield. They will join the nine current members of Invitrogen's board as directors of the new company when the transaction closes.

A new name for the combined entity – be Life Technologies Corp. – will go into effect upon transaction close. Its shares will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LIFE.

Instruments and systems solutions will continue to be sold under the Applied Biosystems brand name, while the combined company's broad offering of reagents will be sold under the Invitrogen brand name.