Abbott announces official move to terminate Alere acquisition

Abbott has announced its intention to pull out of is planned $5.8 billion (4.62 billion pounds) acquisition of the life science company Alere.

The deal, which was originally announced on January 30th this year, was intended to make Abbott the industry's leading diagnostics provider for point-of-care testing solutions, with total diagnostic sales expected to exceed $7 billion after the close.

However, since then Alere has experienced a number of damaging business developments, including the elimination of billing privileges of a substantial Alere division by the US government, as well as the permanent recall of an important product platform.

Coupled with legal troubles that Abbott does not believe Alere's leadership has been able to account for in a transparent manner, these developments are now considered to have damaged Alere's value to the point that the merger is no longer desirable to Abbott.

Scott Stoffel, divisional vice president of external communications at Abbott, said: "Alere is no longer the company Abbott agreed to buy ten months ago. These numerous negative developments are unprecedented and are not isolated incidents brought on by chance."

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