Philips swallows a $635m Capsule

January is not yet two-thirds over and already medtech M&A deals worth more than $8.5bn in total have been kicked off in 2021 – the strongest start to a year for a decade. The latest acquisition is that of Capsule Technologies by one of the sector’s most prolific acquirers, Philips, for $635m in cash. The deal allows the Dutch group to get its hands on Capsule’s software, which is capable of connecting “almost all existing medical devices” and electronic medical records in hospitals, according to Philips, as well as collecting and analysing patient data. Data integration and analysis is a major thrust of Philips’s strategy, its $2.8bn purchase of Biotelemetry a month ago being a prime example. But the Capsule deal is only the fourth largest medtech acquisition announced so far in 2021. It seems these predicting a strong M&A market in the wake of the pandemic were, if anything, underestimating buyers’ ebullience.

Note: the analysis below includes only M&A deals with known values.