Stockholm-based Alex Therapeutics AB is joining forces with pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. to roll out digital therapies to patients in Germany. The partnership will utilize Alex Therapeutics' Alex DTx platform for nicotine addiction in Germany. The platform combines cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy with artificial intelligence (AI) to create treatments for a wide range of psychiatric and somatic disorders.

Nextkidney BV has signed a deal to buy Dialyss Pte. Ltd. as it gears up to commercialize its home hemodialysis device Neokidney. The Singapore-based startup specializes in sorbent technologies for the regeneration of dialysate and has been a collaborator of Nextkidney’s for six years. The combined team will prepare for a clinical trial in Singapore, followed by a European multicenter trial and CE mark submission in 2023. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Akili Interactive Inc. is the latest in a growing field of med-tech startups that are merging with special purpose acquisition companies as a backdoor path to an initial public offering. On Wednesday, the digital medicine company reported plans to combine with Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp. I in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion.

Smith & Nephew plc added new indications for use of its Pico 7 and Pico 14 single-use negative pressure wound therapy (sNPWT) systems. The FDA cleared the London-based device maker’s systems for reducing the incidence of both deep and superficial incisional surgical sites and dehiscence. Smith & Nephew’s Pico 7Y system, which treats two wounds simultaneously, was also cleared to aid in the reduction of the incidence of superficial incisional SSIs for high-risk patients in class I wounds, post-operative seroma and dehiscence.

A year after announcing its intention to sell most of the assets of IBM Watson Health, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) finally reached an agreement with Francisco Partners. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2022, were not disclosed. The gutting of Watson Health comes less than two months after IBM spun off its $19 billion managed technology services business, Kyndryl Holdings as a standalone company.

In one of the most extraordinary years for med-tech mergers and acquisitions, 2021 is the culmination of a snowballing interest in maturing digital technologies amid mounting COVID-19 pandemic problems and uncertain futures. Societal lockdowns in 2020 boosted notice of telehealth, testing and remote monitoring devices, but that notice ramped up even more in 2021, not only as new SARs-CoV-2 variants emerged, but as businesses sought innovative ways of delivering their products.

With the agreement to purchase Physimax Technologies Ltd. in its rearview mirror, Dariohealth Corp. passes another milestone with its third tuck-in deal in a year. Physimax, a provider of computer vision technology for musculoskeletal (MSK) screening and predictive risk assessment, joins Psyinnovations Inc. (dba Wayforward) and Upright Technologies Ltd. as tuck-ins for the rapidly growing digital health company. The latest deal is by far the smallest. The terms call for the issuance of 256,660 shares of Dariohealth’s common stock, valued at Wednesday’s closing price of $9.65 per share at just under $2.5 million, plus a cash payment of $500,000.

Clinisys Inc. has signed a deal to buy laboratory information company Horizon Lab Systems LLC and combine Sunquest Information Systems under the Clinisys brand. The resulting group will be one of the world's largest laboratory informatics organizations. Clinisys and Sunquest share the same parent company – Roper Technologies Inc., which trades on the NYSE stock exchange. The addition of Raleigh, N.C.-based Horizon provides Clinisys with expertise in the public health, environmental, water quality, toxicology and agriculture markets.

Sema4 Holdings Corp. sent a bold message to the market with a definitive agreement to acquire Genedx Inc. from Opko Health Inc. for $623 million. The deal comes as Sema4 winds down its COVID-19 testing by the end of March. The company has been one of the largest testing organizations in Connecticut since its first contract in May 2020, but has lately come under scrutiny because of an investment by Annie Lamont, the governor’s wife.