In a big week for W.L. Gore & Associates Inc., the company reported plans to acquire Conformal Medical Inc. and received U.S. FDA approval for its Viabahn Fortegra venous stent for use in the inferior vena cava, iliac and iliofemoral veins.

It appears that Staar Surgical Co.'s proposed $1.6 billion merger with Alcon AG has been scrapped as Staar shareholders voted against the deal in a stockholder meeting on Jan. 6. In a statement Staar said it intends to terminate its merger agreement with Alcon. No termination fee will be payable by either party, and Staar will remain a stand-alone, publicly traded company.

Four optimization trends dominated the med-tech industry in 2025. Growth-driven acquisitions propelled major players into hot markets, while strategic realignments at several large companies prompted notable exits as well as a few tuck-in deals. Spin-offs continued their mixed performance, with several companies on track for significant splits and others changing plans. Private equity entered — and exited — with leveraged buy outs, and a record-setting cash out.

IPOs top the list of the big stories in 2025 in med tech. Thirty med-tech companies went public, raising nearly $12 billion, two orders of magnitude more than in 2023 and almost 20 times more than raised in 2024.

Advanced Biomed Inc. reported Dec. 30 the sale of its wholly owned Hong Kong subsidiary, Advanced Biomed (HK) Ltd., and related intellectual property to buyer Wei Ha Hui for $23,000.

In October, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for their discoveries in the field of autoimmunity. As has become typical for the scientific Nobel Prizes, the award-winning research is by now several decades old. But the discoveries were the basis for ongoing research into how to prevent autoimmunity that notched significant wins in 2025, in both basic research and in the clinic.

Med-tech M&A value in 2025 totaled about $38.99 billion through November, reflecting a clear slowdown from 2024’s $57.92 billion and well below the peak years of 2021 and 2022, when 11-month totals exceeded $119 billion and $132 billion, respectively. Activity this year has been uneven, with a strong April ($9.04 billion) and July ($7.29 billion) accounting for a large share of the total, while several months posted relatively modest figures. November was particularly quiet, delivering just $5 million in M&A value, down sharply from $1.68 billion in October and marking the weakest month of the year.

Medline Inc. returned to the public markets with a blockbuster IPO of $6.26 billion, reportedly this year’s largest IPO globally. The upsized offering of more than 216 million shares at $29 per share will allow the medical supply giant to devote the entirety of the proceeds from its initially proposed 179 million shares toward repayment of debt.

Companion Spine SAS received premarket approval from the U.S. FDA for its DIAM spinal stabilization system, for treatment of degenerative disc disease. The approval comes as the company recently completed the acquisition of a number of assets from Xtant Medical Holdings Inc., including Paradigm Spine GmbH, as it continues to strengthen its position in providing solutions to treat spinal degenerative conditions.