Philips announced yesterday that they reached a merger agreement to acquire VisICU for $12 per share, $3 over the current share price. From HIStalk, "Visicu earned $9 million on sales of $36 million over the past year. In
the 20 months since its IPO, Visicu shares have dropped from nearly $25
to below $9. Its board has approved the acquisition and recommends that
its shareholders approve it." VisICU also had $130 million in cash on their balance sheet at the time of the agreement. The value of Philips' offer totals around $300 million.

The Philips' press release describes their rationale for the purchase.

By integrating VISICU's remote patient monitoring and clinical
decision support technology with Philips' patient monitors, both
companies expect to accelerate growth by offering products that provide
more effective clinical decision support to hospital staff, while
allowing them to monitor far greater numbers of critically ill patients.

Sounds like an extension to the old "proprietary end-to-end solution" strategy. The VisICU service would seem a natural extension for their ICU monitoring business. Tighter integration could probably improve performance and usability. Whether that would translate into better patient outcomes is questionable.

Rumor has it that Philips has one more acquisition to announce before the end of the year.