Competition from Medtronic plc hurt Boston Scientific Corp.'s cardiac rhythm management (CRM) business in the fourth quarter, analysts noted after Boston Scientific reported its earnings for the quarter.

Although definitions of personalized medicine vary greatly from one person and organization to the next, the term gets thrown around a lot in the context of oncology – for good reason. There simply is no one-size-fits-all approach to fighting cancer.

Despite being introduced to the European market eight years ago and the U.S. market four years ago, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) sales are still delivering impressive results for Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (Irvine, Calif.) and adoption doesn't appear to be slowing down any time soon. After the market closed Tuesday, Edwards released fourth-quarter earnings that showed a 25-percent increase in TAVR sales and raised its full-year earnings forecast.

After a relatively quiet 2015 on the deal front, Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Ill.) made some noise Monday with a plan to acquire Alere Inc. (Waltham, Mass) for $5.8 billion. The news comes less than a week after CEO Miles White hinted on the company's earnings call that management had its eyes on "a number of opportunities" and that adding to the business with mergers and acquisitions was a key priority. Diagnostics is one of Abbott's most consistent growth businesses, White said.