• Ecolab (St. Paul, Minnesota) reported completing its previously disclosed $275 million purchase of Microtek Medical Holdings (Alpharetta, Georgia), a manufacturer of infection control products for healthcare and acute care facilities, specializes in infection barrier equipment drapes, patient drapes, fluid control products and operating room cleanup systems. Microtek shareholders voted in favor of the sale to Ecolab.
  • Getinge Group (Stockholm, Sweden) said it will acquire the cardiac and vascular surgery businesses of Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) for $750 million in cash. Getinge, a global provider of healthcare equipment and systems, said it would use the acquisition to establish a base for building a global cardiac surgery business in the coming years.
  • Genzyme (Cambridge, Massachusetts) reported that it will acquire the diagnostics division of privately held Diagnostic Chemicals (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island) for about $56.5 million. The Diagnostic Chemicals portfolio includes more than 50 clinical chemistry reagents and the provision of diagnostics operations in Prince Edward Island, Canada and Connecticut.
  • Hansen Medical (Mountain View, California) reported a definitive agreement to acquire AorTx (Redwood City, California), an early-stage developer of catheter-based valve technology. The financial terms include a closing payment of $5 million in Hansen common stock and $5 million in cash, plus milestones payments up to $15 million in Hansen common stock and $15 million in cash upon the achievement of regulatory clearances, revenue and partnering milestones.
  • Inverness Medical Innovations (IMI; Waltham, Massachusetts) reported completing its $165 million acquisition of HemoSense (San Jose, California), a developer of point-of-care testing products for therapeutic drug monitoring. The transaction was structured as a stock-for-stock deal. The deal is one of a series of recent acquisitions by IMI in the past year. The company agreement to buy Alere Medical (Reno, Nevada) for $302 million in October.
  • Mediware Information Systems (Lenexa, Kansas), a provider of ClosedLoop clinical systems for blood and medication management, reported completing the acquisition of substantially all assets of Integrated Marketing Solutions (IMS; Baltimore), a provider of software products and services for blood and plasma donation centers to provide donor relationship management with web-based tools. Mediware will pay about $5.2 million in cash for the purchase, with an additional earn-out based on future operational performance.
  • MedQuest (Alpharetta, Georgia), a provider of diagnostic imaging services, has merged with Novant Health (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and will operate as a subsidiary of Novant. Novant purchased MedQuest for $45 million. If MedQuest achieves agreed-upon 2008 financial metrics, Novant will pay up to anotherl $35 million.
  • PerkinElmer (Waltham, Massachusetts) reported completing its acquisition of ViaCell (Cambridge, Massachusetts), a company specializing in the collection and preservation of umbilical cord blood stem cells. PerkinElmer completed its tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of ViaCell's common stock for $7.25 a share in cash in the deal, worth about $281.6 million. The company said it is buying ViaCell to expand its product line in the neonatal and prenatal markets.
  • Regeneration Technologies (Alachua, Florida) and Tutogen Medical (Alachua) reported a plan to merge in a deal worth about $263 million. Regeneration processes human (allograft) and animal (xenograft) tissue into shaped implants for use in orthopedic and other surgeries. Tutogen makes sterile biological implant products made from human and animal tissue. The deal is expected to close in 1Q08.
  • Siemens (Munich, Germany) reported that with expiration of a cash tender offer at midnight, Oct. 31, it accepted all validly tendered shares of Dade Behring (Deerfield, Illinois). With the closing, Dade will be integrated into the existing business of Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics (SMS; Tarrytown, New York), a subsidiary of Siemens Medical Solutions USA (Malvern, Pennsylvania).
  • Ventana Medical Systems (Tucson, Arizona) moved a step closer to a merger with Roche Holdings (Basel, Switzerland) with its agreement to open its books to Roche, giving it access to non-public information. Ventana said it believes this move will allow Roche to better understand the company's value, and that it could break up the logjam that has been Roche's ineffective tender offer that values the company at $75 a share, or about $3 billion. Ventana shareholders have been cool to Roche's offer after months of what Roche said were fruitless private advances.
  • Zimmer (Warsaw, Indiana) said it has now taken up and paid for 42,545,600 shares of Orthosoft (Montreal), representing 92.36% of the total number of shares outstanding. The company thus moves to acquire the shares it does not own via a compulsory acquisition. In August, Zimmer reported plans to acquire Orthosoft for C$50 million, which excludes the 12.4% of outstanding Orthosoft stock held by a Zimmer subsidiary.