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A Sobered Abbott Buys i-Stat

Abbott Laboratories' acquisition of i-Stat for $392 million reflects the promise and limitations of point-of-care diagnostics. A decade ago, i-Stat was a giddy startup, on a mission to revolutionize laboratory medicine with a handheld diagnostics system that could run basic blood tests rapidly at the patients' bedside. While it has accomplished much, it is far from creating a revolution. Meanwhile, the timing of the deal comes as Abbott emerges from a four-year nightmare with the FDA in which the FDA forced it to pull many of its important immunoassay tests off the market.

In many ways, Abbott Laboratories Inc. 's $392 million acquisition of i-Stat Corp. [See Deal] shows both the promise and limitations of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics. A decade ago, i-Stat was a giddy start-up, on a mission to revolutionize laboratory medicine with a handheld diagnostics system that could run basic blood tests rapidly at patients' bedside—beyond the already well-established blood glucose testing for diabetics. Its argument: many tests would migrate from the central lab to the i-Stat Portable Clinical Analyzer because, clearly, getting results quickly would help physicians make important decisions faster and better.

Two problems emerged from i-Stat's position. First, the central lab adamantly refused to yield its authority over testing, insisting that...

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