Roundup, deals, acquistions

Millennium Makes a Surprise Exit, EMC’s Persistence Pays Off, Quantum Dots a Vision to In-Q-Tel, & More Deals News

Rebecca Zacks 4/14/08

This last week saw several sizeable takeover agreements (and a few smaller ones) inked. Here’s more on those and the rest of the recent deals news.

—Hopkinton, MA-based EMC’s second takeover offer for San Diego-based storage maker Iomega was evidently the charm—the firms agreed on a final price of approximately $213 million, or $3.85 per share.

—Boston- and London-based buyout firm Advent International completed raising its sixth fund, worth $10.4 billion.

—Japan’s largest drug firm, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, made a surprise $8.8 billion takeover offer for Cambridge, MA-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MLNM). Under the terms of the deal, Millennium will stay put in Massachusetts and so will its current CEO, Deborah Dunsire, who will run the firm as a standalone business unit of Takeda.

—Burlington, MA’s Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) cut a $363 million deal to purchase Needham, MA-based eScription, which makes speech-to-text medical dictation software.

—PowerSteering Software raised $3.5 million in new financing in a round led by MMV Financial and joined by Hudson Ventures and Advent International. The Cambridge, MA, firm’s software-as-a-service products help companies comply with the Six Sigma standards for process improvement.

—Waltham, MA-based Repligen (NASDAQ: RGEN) settled a patent suit it had filed with the University of Michigan against Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). Under the settlement agreement, Repligen will collect an initial $5 million payment and royalties on BMS’s arthritis drug, Orencia.

—Luggage-screening firm Reveal Imaging of Bedford, MA, raised $20.3 million in a financing led by BBH Capital Partners III and joined by existing investors, including Greylock Partners, General Catalyst Partners, and Flybridge Capital Partners.

—In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, made a strategic investment in QD Vision of Watertown, MA. The Massachusetts firm is using MIT-developed “quantum dot” technology to build next-generation LEDs.

—North Andover, MA’s TouchStone Software—which provides users with a database of drivers for PC peripherals—agreed to be acquired by Phoenix Technologies of Milpitas, CA, for about $18 million.

—Bankrupt medical-device firm Diomed (AMEX: DIO) of Andover, MA, plans to sell its U.S. operations and some of its U.K. assets to AngioDynamics of Queensbury, NY, for $11 million. The deal comes instead of an earlier plan to sell out to the German firm Biolitec.