A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

The $5.3 billion acquisition of Bayer Diagnostics (Tarrytown, New York) by Siemens Medical Solutions (Malvern, Pennsylvania) has been completed. The deal was first disclosed in July.

Bayer Diagnostics and Diagnostic Products Corp. (DPC; Los Angeles) were merged into a single business unit on Jan. 1. The new entity, Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens and employs more than 8,000.

For Siemens, the acquisition provides a strong complementary fit to its purchase, in April, of DPC for $1.68 billion. The company said that with the additions of DPC and the Bayer unit it will garner the No. 2 position in immunodiagnostics worldwide.

In unveiling its part of the deal, parent company Bayer (Leverkusen, Germany) said the spin-off is intended to reduce debt and refocus its health division.

“We are concentrating on pharmaceuticals for both humans and animals, and products that can be promoted directly to patients,” said Bayer CEO Werner Wenning at the time the deal was disclosed in July. The company noted that its diabetes business, as well as the contrast agent business of Schering (Berlin), were not included in the Siemens transaction. Bayer acquired Schering for about EUR 3.7 billion this past June.

“With the acquisitions of DPC and Bayer Diagnostics, we invested heavily in a future oriented and growing market in the health care sector. We see tremendous potential for Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics and have high expectations for the new unit,” said Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO of Siemens (Munich, Germany).

Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics maintains leading positions in clinical chemistry, patient tests, laboratory automation and blood cell diagnostics and develops solutions for the molecular diagnostics and gene analysis markets.

Anthony Bihl, previous president of the Diagnostics division of Bayer Healthcare, has been named as CEO. Sid Aroesty, who served as president and COO of DPC, was nominated COO of the new business; and Jochen Schmitz, previous CFO of the Siemens Medical Solutions Molecular Imaging division, will assume the CFO role.

In other dealmaking activity:

Arrhythmia Research Technology (ART) reported that its subsidiary, Micron Products (both Fitchburg, Massachusetts) — a manufacturer of silver/silver chloride and conductive resin sensors used in disposable ECG, EKG and EEG monitoring and diagnostic electrodes — completed the purchase of Leominster Tool Company (Leominster, Massachusetts).

“The addition of the new Leominster Tool division vertically integrates mold design and manufacturing with Micron’s proprietary sensor product line, with the custom injection molding of our New England Molders [NEM] division and the product life cycle management of our Micron Integrated Technologies [MIT] division,” said James Rouse, president/CEO of ART and Micron. He said the Leominster Tool division will function independently as a high-end mold design and manufacturing provider for the injection molding industry.

Micron’s new Leominster Tool Division said it will employ all of the Leominster Tool management and staff.