Smith+Nephew plc has agreed to acquire Integrity Orthopaedics Inc. for up to $450 million in a bid to strengthen its shoulder repair portfolio. The move comes as the company looks to accelerate its growth with strategic investments, with the deal expected to be an important step in its ambition in becoming a global leader in sports medicine.

Boston Scientific to buy Valencia Technologies

Boston Scientific Corp. plans to acquire Valencia Technologies Corp. in the first half of 2026 in a move that will expand its urology portfolio. Valencia makes the Ecoin system, an implantable tibial nerve stimulator designed to treat urge urinary incontinenence.

Illumina Billion Cell Atlas to accelerate AI, drug discovery 

Illumina Inc. presented at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference today and introduced what it said is the world's largest genome-wide genetic perturbation dataset, being built to accelerate drug discovery through AI across the pharmaceutical ecosystem. Illumina said the Billion Cell Atlas is the first tranche of its program to build a 5 billion cell atlas over three years, and will be the most comprehensive map of human disease biology to date. Under an alliance framework with AstraZeneca, Merck, and Eli Lilly and Co. leading as founding participants, the Atlas is already in build for a curated set of cell lines to drive drug target validation, train advanced AI models at scale, and advance research into fundamental disease mechanisms that have previously been out of reach.

Pace of EOs slows, but still wields big impact

Perhaps the biggest indicator of U.S. President Donald Trump’s activism in his second term is the 225 executive orders (EOs) he issued in 2025. The pace of those orders seems to have slowed, with “only” 16 released in the last quarter of the year. Four of the recent EOs could impact drug and device companies in a myriad of ways, as they could affect hiring at the FDA, elevate the development and use of AI in health care, crack down on foreign-owned and activist proxy advisers that use the shareholder voting process to shape the policies and priorities of America's public companies, and finally end the federal stonewalling that’s prevented a lot of research into the potential medical uses of marijuana.

Also in the news

Abbott Olabs, Aktis Oncology, Alivecor, Atacor Medical, Boehringer Ingelheim, Commonspirit Health, Conavi Medical, Enspire, Freenome, Fullscript, Graymatters Health, HCAP Partners, Idexx, Innovative Health, Integrated Diagnostic Services, Kestra Medical, Maui Imaging, Newton, Nueovosono, Nvidia, Ōura, Pathmaker Neurosystems, Positive Development, Precede Biosciences, Revance, Revitalvision, Safeheal, Superwise, Synchrony Medical, eoxane, Tetrascience, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Veristat, Zap Surgical