A Medical Device Daily

Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Massachusetts) — the company recently formed from the merger of Thermo Electron and Fischer Scientific (Medical Device Daily, Nov. 10, 2006) — is on the acquisition trail. On Friday it reported acquiring Cohesive Technologies (Franklin, Massachusetts), a manufacturer of sample extraction and liquid chromatography products.

The value of the deal was not disclosed. Cohesive has annual revenues of about $15 million.

According to Thermo Fisher, the Cohesive product line enhances its Thermo Scientific-branded products by adding in-line sample preparation capabilities that couple with mass spectrometry to create end-to-end workflow solutions for drug and other organic molecule analyses.

It said these new capabilities “will significantly improve sample throughput and increase detection limits during LC/MS/MS analysis for customers in the pharmaceutical, clinical environmental and food science industries.“

Luminex (Austin, Texas) reported that it has agreed to acquire Tm Bioscience (Toronto), a developer of commercial genetic tests.

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.

With deal close, Tm shareholders will own about 9% of Luminex outstanding common stock. Completion of the transaction, expected in 1Q07, requires the approval of Tm shareholders and other customary approvals.

Tm's products include tests for infectious diseases as well as tests for genetic mutations related to cystic fibrosis, sepsis, personalized medicine and other debilitating genetic disorders.

“As we continue to support our partners in Life Science research and Immunoassay/HLA, molecular diagnostics will be an important growth market for Luminex,“ said Patrick Balthrop, president/CEO of Luminex. “We believe this business combination will allow us to accelerate our growth strategy and build shareholder value.“

J.P. Morgan Securities was financial advisor to Luminex. Leerink Swann & Co. acted as financial advisor to Tm, and Westwind Partners advised Tm with respect to financing.

In other dealmaking news:

• Simulations Plus (Lancaster, California), a provider of software for pharmaceutical discovery and development, reported that F. Hoffmann-LaRoche (Basel, Switzerland) has renewed and expanded its global licenses for Simulations Plus software for another two years.

Ron Creeley, VP of marketing and sales for Simulations Plus, said: “Roche's scientists have been among our longest-standing users and have provided numerous suggestions for improving especially GastroPlus over the years. Our software has become a significant component of Roche's research methodologies and its use continues growing within the company's community of world-class scientists. Because of this, this new contract is larger than before in both number of software licenses and sales revenues per year.“

Simulations Plus is a developer of drug discovery and development software.

• Windrose Medical Properties Trust (Indianapolis) reported that its stockholders approved the merger with Health Care REIT (Toledo, Ohio) at a special meeting. Merger closing is set to occur on or about Dec. 20, subject to the closing conditions.

Windrose is a self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT) with offices in Nashville, Tennessee, formed to acquire specialty medical properties.

As of Sept, 30, Health Care REIT had investments in 477 facilities in 37 states.