This week, Bioventus announced plans to sell its wound business; Pfizer and Thermo Fisher Scientific partnered to increase cancer screening access; and the FDA expanded the magnetic resonance imaging labeling for Abbott’s Eterna spinal cord stimulator.

Bioventus exercised a “call option” to acquire CartiHeal for about $315m, plus up to $135m in milestones. The US FDA recently approved CartiHeal’s Agili-C implant to treat knee joint surface lesions.

In the third quarter of 2021, medical device company M&A values reached $7.1bn, while in vitro diagnostic firms and research tools players completed M&A activity that totaled $6.7bn.

At the live AAOS conference, exhibitors, including major orthopedics players, demoed digital innovations, software-enabled technologies, robotics and smart implants that are expected to create efficiencies in the surgical continuum and provide data to improve outcomes.