Inverness wins Biosite battle

WALTHAM, Mass.—In a corporate tug-of-war that has played out over the past few weeks, Inverness Medical Innovations announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement under which it will acquire all outstanding common stock of Biosite that it does not already own. In doing so, it beat out strong interest from Beckman Coulter for the same property.

"After many months of hard work and dedication, we are gratified to have reached an agreement with Biosite that maximizes value for their stockholders while offering the advantages and growth potential of this powerful strategic combination to our own stockholders," says Inverness Chair and CEO Ron Zwanziger. "We expect that a combination with Biosite will be accretive to Inverness' cash-based EPS in the near term as we quickly leverage Biosite's strength in proprietary protein markers and robust cardiovascular platform together with our ongoing research and development efforts in the cardiac arena."

Inverness finally won the bidding war with a cash tender offer of $92.50/share, which beat out Beckman Coulter's most recent offer of $90/share. With the bidding war brewing over the last two months, Biosite has seen its stock price jump from the low $50/share range to the low $90/share range. By opting to go with Inverness, Biosite will pay a $54-million termination penalty to Beckman Coulter.