As economic conditions worsened over the course of 2008, consumers pulled back on discretionary, big-ticket purchases, directly impacting laser vision correction volume trends in the US, including the popular LASIK procedure. At the same time, the cataract surgery market seems to be recession-proof.

Bausch & Lomb was slogging forward after a difficult year-the company had been embroiled in a lengthy accounting investigation involving some of its foreign subsidiaries since the end of 2005 and in early 2006 it was compelled to recall its most profitable product-. In mid-May 2007 Bausch & Lomb was wrestling with a 3% decrease in annual sales, 344 product liability lawsuits, and an overhanging intellectual property case that could affect its fastest growing contact lens line, when up galloped white knight private equity firm Warburg Pincus, with a $4.5 billion offer to take the ophthalmic company private.

Brief summaries of recent product and company developments in the device industry, including Aspect Medical's brain monitoring technology, Warburg's bid for Bausch & Lomb, and Frazier Healthcare Venture's investment in publicly-traded Endocare.

We present another installment of our quarterly review of dealmaking-for January-March 2007. Our data comes from Windhover's Strategic Transactions Database, which covers deal activity within the pharmaceutical/biotechnology, medical device, and in vitro diagnostics and research industries.