DSM stirs gut health play with BioCare; Strength coach market for Neptune's Omega Drive; Nutranext corporate brand for Wellnext; and more news in brief.

The firms say their patent cross-licensing agreement ends all outstanding litigation. Aker gets access to Neptune's composition patents for $10m over a period of 15 months, and Neptune has rights to Aker's select krill oil-related patent portfolio for $4m.

NSF adds 'next generation' DNA ID service; Dietary Guidelines updated; NPA in anti-internet tax coalition; GNC hires financial communications firm; and more news in brief.

At $1.8 billion, Q2 device financing nearly doubled the Q1 total, mainly from an increase in IPOs and early VC rounds, and acquisitions were slightly higher at $4.7 billion. Diagnostics funding also increased to $784 million from Q1's $597 million, and Danaher's monster $13.8 billion buy of life sciences company Pall headlined the second quarter's $15.6 billion total in diagnostics M&A activity.