Ventana Medical ends bid to buy Vision

Tucson, AZ-based Ventana Medical Systems has dropped a plan to purchase Vision Systems Ltd. of Australia after Danaher Corp. of Washington, D.C offered to acquire Vision for about $2.79 per share, according to the Associated Press.

In addition, Ventana, which makes clinical systems used to detect and treat cancer and other diseases, said it ended previously disclosed talks about possibly cooperating with Danaher to acquire Vision.

Ventana’s withdrawal is the latest development in a three-way bidding war for Vision, which was also being courted by medical diagnostic test maker Cytyc Corp of Marlborough, MA. Cytyc offered about $2.42 per share for Vision.

Ventana said it owns 22 million shares, or 10.2%, of Vision’s outstanding shares, which it purchased at an average price of about $2.12 per share.

The main attraction in Vision is its biosystems arm, which sells automated machines to pathology labs and hospitals then locks in customers to high-margin three to five-year packages for the reagents used with the machines.