Recent acquisitions in the diagnostics in the industry have been notable, not for being of blockbuster size, but rather because they represent a trend toward continued focus on strategic growth and, increasingly, divestiture of assets not core to the company’s franchise. “Broadly speaking diagnostics is an area of faster growth, relative to the rest of health care, and players are looking to seal up a leadership position in a certain space or get into a faster-growing piece of that space, which is molecular,” says Nicholas Jansen, an associate health care analyst at the investment firm Raymond James and Associates. “But there is probably much more of a laserlike focus on what makes a good acquisition target than five years ago.” An examination of transactions in the first quarter of 2013 reflects strategic acquisitions likely to improve the leadership position of the acquirer in a specific market and an opportunity for the seller to consolidate its resources on its most promising channels. For instance, Quest Diagnostics (Madison, N.J.) announced at the end of February that the company signed a definitive agreement to sell its HemoCue diagnostic products business to Radiometer Medical ApS (a Danaher company, Denmark) for approximately $300 million. HemoCue […]