Device financing dropped more than 40% to $714 million in Q1; Smith & Nephew’s $1.7 billion acquisition of ArthroCare overshadowed acquisitions. Diagnostics companies raised $568 million, a 34% increase over 2013’s final quarter; nonprofits provided assets to diagnostics firms in multiple licensing arrangements.

Statistical review compiled from our Strategic Transactions database including financings by type (IPO, private placement etc.); financings by sector (surgical equipment, implantable devices, etc.); alliances by therapeutic category (cardiovascular, orthopedic, etc.); alliances by industry segment (biomaterials, monitoring equipment, etc. ); for three separate industries: medical devices, in vitro diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals/biotechnology.

In the past two years, Inverness Medical Innovations has paid a total of roughly $500 million to buy five rapid point-of-care (POCT) diagnostic testing businesses, which now lie at the heart of its effort to expand in the POCT realm. These have laid the ground work for four subsequent transactions and related financings, all aimed at making Inverness a world leader in women's health and pregnancy testing. But what's of interest isn't so much the women's health play per se as the company's management tream, which has twice before built up POCT companies, then sold them for significant premiums.

In Vivo presents another installment of our quarterly reivew of dealmaking--in this case April-June 2003. Our data come from Windhover's Strategic Transactions Database. We include medical device financings by deal type; diagnostic financings by industry segment; pharma and biotech alliances by therapeutic category and industry segment; pharma and biotech financings by market segment, and pharma and biotech M&A.