San Diego, CA-based software-as-a-service company Seqster developed a technology that integrates data from electronic health records, genomics and wearables into one platform. Seqster's CEO Ardy Arianpour believes he has solved a major interoperability problem and hopes to attract providers, payers and pharma companies as clients.

Device fundraising during the fourth quarter totaled $2.6 billion, making it the strongest quarter of the year. Q4 M&A activity reached $3.9 billion, higher than Q3's $3.4 billion, but still one of the lowest quarters of the year. Both fourth quarter diagnostics financings and M&As hit an all-year low of $622 million, and $2.8 million, respectively.

If the beginning of 2017 was marked by doubts around whether and how the FDA would act with respect to complex diagnostics, we enter 2018 feeling that slow-moving vessel may finally be turning.

Third-quarter device financing at $2.38 billion – almost half of that amount from CooperSurgical's $1.1 billion bridge loan – was double the Q2 total, while device acquisitions showed a steep decrease at $3.38 billion versus Q2's $33.4 billion. Diagnostics fundraising also was up in the third quarter, reaching $2.4 billion (a 133% increase over Q2) mostly from Thermo Fisher Scientific's $1.5 billion follow-on offering, which accounted for 63% of the total. In line with the previous quarter's $1.7 billion in M&A, Q3 diagnostics acquisitions had an aggregate value of $1.8 billion, led by Konica Minolta's $1 billion buy of Ambry Genetics.