A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Advanced Liquid Logic (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), a microfluidics “lab-on-a-chip” spinout from the Pratt School of engineering at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina), reported that it has acquired Nanolytics (Raleigh, North Carolina). Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Nanolytics, founded in the late 1990’s, received several million dollars in commercial and government support prior to the transaction. Michael Pollack, an early Nanolytics employee, left Nanolytics to further develop the technology at Duke and then went on to co-found Advanced Liquid Logic in 2004.

“This clearly gives us the high ground in the race for both demonstrated progress and intellectual property in this exciting new technology. The technology has huge potential for miniaturizing test equipment and performing complex tests at the point of sample collection,” said Richard West, CEO of Advanced Liquid.

Advanced Liquid Logic develops products for medical diagnostics and monitoring.

• Bioscience (Toronto), a developer of genetic tets, reported that it has received a final order from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approving the acquisition of the company by Luminex (Austin, Texas).

As reported earlier this week, the shareholders and option holders of Tm Bioscience approved the transaction at a special meeting.

Each Tm Bioscience share will be exchanged for 0.06 shares of Luminex common stock. The per-share consideration represents a 41.5% premium for Tm shares, based on the closing price of a share of Tm common stock and Luminex common stock on Dec. 14, the last trading day prior to the announcement of the acquisition.

Luminex said each Tm common share will be exchanged for each 0.06 share of Luminex common stock. With transaction completion, Tm shareholders will own about 9% of Luminex outstanding common stock. The transaction was approved by Tm shareholders and optionholders at a special meeting on Feb. 23, and the deal has met all required approvals and conditions.

The per-share consideration represents a 41.5% premium for Tm shares, based on the closing price of a share of Tm common stock and Luminex common stock on Dec. 14, the last trading day prior to announcement of the acquisition.

“With Tm’s cGMP-capable manufacturing, proprietary molecular detection chemistries, assay development expertise and a strong menu of kits and reagents, and the complementary assets and strengths of Luminex’s partner-based business model, we intend to work closely with our business partners that have relevant distribution channels or complementary products to leverage this new business to the mutual benefit of Luminex and our partners,” said Patrick Balthrop, president/CEO of Luminex.

Luminex develops biological testing technologies. Tm develops tests for genetic disorders, drug metabolism and infectious diseases.

• Siemens Medical Solutions (SMS; Erlangen, Germany) reported that it has received antitrust approval and completed its acquisition of Gesellschaft f r Systemforschung und Dienstleistungen im Gesundheitswesen (GSD; Berlin).

The new entity, Siemens Medical Solutions GSD, will remain a separate entity, operating as a subsidiary of SMS as part of the Health Services (HS) Division. With this acquisition Siemens said it strengthens its position in the European healthcare information technology (HIT) market.

Siemens said the combined product portfolio is unique in its regional and functional market coverage, enabling the tailoring of solution offerings for customers at various levels of HIT maturity.

With more than 300 customers in 14 countries, GSD is a health information systems company. With the addition of GSD’s i.s.h.med and i.c.m.health product lines, Siemens said the buy enhances its global healthcare IT portfolio and infuses additional industry expertise into its product and service offerings for the European market.

GSD generated revenue of E23.6 million and employed 167 people in fiscal year 2006.

After the formation of Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics, following the acquisitions of Diagnostic Products Corp. (DPC; Los Angeles) and Bayer Diagnostics (Tarrytown, New York), the acquisition of GSD is Siemens Medical Solutions’ third acquisition in the past three quarters.

The company said these moves support its strategy of building the industry’s first full service diagnostics company that combines diagnostic imaging, laboratory diagnostics and clinical information technology under one roof along the value chain.

• China Medical Technologies (Beijing), a company developing in vitro diagnostic systems and tumor therapy systems, said it completed its previously reported acquisition of a fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) business. The acquisition is expected to diversify the company’s portfolio and complement its existing ECLIA diagnostic products by providing tests for the diagnosis of prenatal and postnatal disorders as well as various cancers, the company said.

Final payment for the acquisition is $136.8 million in cash with a further $40 million payable in cash or, at the company’s option, shares in the company, upon the achievement of certain milestones, the most important being the generation of $20 million in revenue from FISH products in the first year after closing.