Alexion Bets Big on Rare Diseases

It was another busy week for pharmaceutical deals, but Alexion (NASDAQ: ALXN) took the prize for biggest deal with its $8.4 billion acquisition of Synageva BioPharma Corp., a privately held pharma company specializing in treatments for rare diseases. Alexion touted the fact that Synageva’s pipeline complements its own and the combined company will be one of the most robust rare disease pipelines, with more than 30 diverse pre-clinical programs. The price consists of $115 in cash and 0.6581 ALXN shares for each share of Synageva, implying a total per-share value of $230, based on the nine-day volume-weighted average closing price of Alexion stock through May 5, 2015. Read More »

Busy Year for Billion-Dollar Health Care Deals

Last week we noted that April was a slow month for healthcare deals. Then we checked our database, DealSearchOnline.com, and discovered there have been 19 billion-dollar deal announcements already in 2015, through May 8th, with a combined total of $103.6 billion. The total for the entire year is about to top $120 billion, on 487 transactions. That’s not on track to beat 2014, yet. Read More »

Four Deals for Physician Medical Groups

The first full week of May saw a lot of activity, relatively speaking, in the Physician Medical Group sector. Four deals were announced, and not all by the usual acquirers. TeamHealth Holdings (NYSE: TMH), which took on Princeton Emergency Physicians in New Jersey for an undisclosed price, and IPC Healthcare (NASDAQ: IPCM) acquired Atlantic Hospitalist Group in Macon, Georgia. Eisner Pediatric & Family Center, a 95-year-old integrated community clinic in downtown Los Angeles, announced its acquisition of five physician practices in the surrounding area, three pediatric and two OB/GYN. Late in the week came word that South Shore Hospital in South Weymouth, Massachusetts would acquire... Read More »

Smith & Nephew Gets Some Help in the OR

Medical device maker Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE: SNN) acquired two surgical software applications, Virtual BackTable® and TrayTouch®, from privately held S2 Interactive. Both of the applications are used by Syncera, Smith & Nephew’s new orthopedic supply chain model for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). They allow hospital and ASC administrators to access, analyze and manage real-time data related to instrument use during surgery. Arthroplasty surgery can involve as many as 20 trays holding a total of 200 or more instruments, all of which need to be counted, cleaned, inspected, assembled and sterilized before every surgery. Read More »