Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Going Big

For the first half of this year, mergers and acquisitions among med-tech companies have been big, writes Stacy Lawrence at Fierce Medical Devices. The top five deals announced so far this year have been larger, she notes, that the top five from the first half of last year.

"Investors have taken well to these acquisitions; most have seen a double- or even triple-digit gain in their share prices since these med tech deals were announced," she says.

For the first half of 2014, the deals so far clock in at $63.2 billion, compared to last year's first half total of $24.6 billion. The top deal so far this year, Lawrence notes, is the merger of Medtronic and Covidien for $42.9 billion in cash and stock, followed by the $13.4 billion acquisition of Biomet by Zimmer.

Still, over a slightly longer term Illumina has particularly made out well. According to Lawrence, the company has gained 226 percent since it announced its takeover of Verinata in early 2013.

The Scan

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.

Sequencing Analysis Examines Gene Regulatory Networks of Honeybee Soldier, Forager Brains

Researchers in Nature Ecology & Evolution find gene regulatory network differences between soldiers and foragers, suggesting bees can take on either role.

Analysis of Ashkenazi Jewish Cohort Uncovers New Genetic Loci Linked to Alzheimer's Disease

The study in Alzheimer's & Dementia highlighted known genes, but also novel ones with biological ties to Alzheimer's disease.

Tara Pacific Expedition Project Team Finds High Diversity Within Coral Reef Microbiome

In papers appearing in Nature Communications and elsewhere, the team reports on findings from the two-year excursion examining coral reefs.