Beckman Coulter ups bid for Biosite
Looking to outdo Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. of Waltham, Beckman Coulter Inc. has sweetened its bid to acquire Biosite Inc., Biosite of San Diego said today.
Beckman, a California instrumentation company, previously offered to purchase Biosite, a maker of diagnostics products, for $85 a share; then Inverness, which makes home-pregnancy tests and medical diagnostic kits, made an unsolicited offer to buy Biosite for $90 a share.
Last week, Biosite said it was planning to accept Inverness's offer unless Beckman sweetened its bid.
Today Biosite said that Biosite and Beckman Coulter have entered into an amendment to their existing merger agreement from March; under the amended agreement, Beckman Coulter will acquire all of Biosite's outstanding common stock in a cash tender offer for $90 a share, or about $1.67 billion.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
