Imaging Company Acquisitions Point Way to the Future

If last year's imaging acquisitions are a sign of things to come, then the trend of larger companies buying up smaller ones will continue. Siemens AG-REG's (Malvern, PA) purchase of CTI Molecular Imaging Inc. (Knoxville, TN) was a natural progression, says Markus Lusser, vice president of Siemens's Molecular Imaging division.

“We had an 18-year relationship [with CTI] in the PET arena,” Lusser says. “After 18 years, during which CTI built up its expertise, we decided it was time to join forces.”

Siemens management hopes the acquisition will increase the company's molecular imaging capabilities and improve its development of biomarkers. “We are going to have a lot of synergies,” Lusser says. “We'll bring biomarkers into the day-to-day clinical environment.” Hamill, principal of equity research at Piper Jaffray (Minneapolis), predicts that the deal might also result in a push to develop a PET/CT hybrid scanner.

“It looks like [a PET/CT hybrid scanner] could be an interesting machine in the cardiac field,” Hamill says. “It could give a physician the ability to see what the [blood] flow is like through arteries. You could see the oxygenation received by the heart muscle—not only see plaque buildup, but also see if oxygenation is affecting the heart as well.”

That was not the only acquisition activity in imaging. In September, Danaher Corp. (Washington, DC), a medical instrumentation company, bought Leica Microsystems AG (Wetzlar, Germany), a manufacturer of high-precision imaging systems. The approximately $530 million sale will expand Danaher's instrumentation division into life sciences and strengthen its critical-care diagnostics business.

Also, Danaher's acquisition of Leica, a company with approximately 3700 employees, gives the company an entry into the metrology, direct-write electron-beam, and wafer inspection segments.—Brendan Gill

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