Ruth Beran talks with Iatia boss Charles Laycock about the importance of being smart and flexible in designing a good biotech business model.

Howard Leibman, who advised Heartware (ASX:HTW) during its recent ASX-listing as an associate director of specialist biotech investment bank Emerging Growth Capital, has been poached by the artificial heart company.

Hopes that a burst of high-flying IPOs would fan investor interest in biotechnology were dashed in Q2, as several companies -- including Acadia Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals -- had to accept much lower prices than anticipated. Otherwise, it was an uneventful second quarter, and tools companies managed to maintain last year's hard-earned gains, adding 1 per cent to their index. Discovery companies, however, dipped 9 per cent.

General Electric has closed the all-stock deal valued at US$9.5 billion to acquire Amersham, which has become GE Healthcare Technologies.

Medical equipment maker Amersham, which is being bought by General Electric, had third-quarter sales of £393 million as of September 30, the last day of the reporting period), compared to £378 million a year ago, the company said.

General Electric has made a bid to buy the UK's largest medical imaging company, Amersham. The combined company will have combined revenues of US$13 billion.

General Electric has made a bid for the British medical equipment company Amersham and could announce its intentions to buy the company soon, according to reports published yesterday.

Buoyed by a recent pledge of $US2.4 billion ($AUD3.71 billion) in funding from the US government, nanotechnology researchers, investors and business executives gathered in New York this week to discuss new technologies and the state of their emerging industry.