Brief summaries of recent product and company developments in the device industry, including Medtronic's acquisition of Kyphon, Siemens' purchase of Dade, and the FoxHollow/ev3 merger.

A business development panel representing the emerging group of mid-sized device dealmakers that are actively looking for innovative technology from small companies discusses the current state of medtech dealmaking.

Women's health is an area long shunned by pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies. But that is starting to change thanks to the successes of companies such as Cytyc and Digene, who have built successful testing franchises in the Ob/ Gyn market. As companies such as PerkinElmer and others look to develop new tests in this market, a spate of start-ups are developing technologies that might fit the bill. Of greatest interest are the so-called molecular tests since they offer the advantage of premium pricing.

In this issue, we present another installment of our quarterly review of dealmaking-for January-March 2005. Our data comes from Windhover's Strategic Intelligence Systems, which covers deal activity within the pharmaceutical/biotechnology, medical device, and in vitro diagnostics industries.