BUSINESS NEWS
Private equity firm Avista Capital Partners (New York City) has agreed to acquire the fluid management and venous access businesses of Boston Scientific Corp. (Natick, MA) for $425 million in cash. Avista also recently agreed to acquire Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, a unit of Bristol-Myers Squibb (New York City), for about $525 million. In related news, Boston Scientific is in the process of selling its cardiac surgery and vascular surgery businesses to the Getinge Group (Getinge, Sweden) for about $750 million in cash.
Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) plans to acquire clinical IT and service provider Visicu Inc. (Baltimore) for about $300 million. Philips plans to integrate Visicu's remote patient monitoring and clinical decision support technology with its patient monitors.
Inverness Medical Innovations (Waltham, MA) has agreed to acquire Alere Medical Inc. (Reno, NV), a provider of health and care management services, for $302 million. The deal is just one of a number of acquisitions announced by Inverness during 2007. Purchases also included the $1.6 billion acquisition of Biosite (San Diego).
