A snapshot of global medical device approvals captured during the past week in Medtech Insight's Approvals Tracker. This week, two spine device approvals from US FDA, and a CE mark for a new drug-eluting stent.

Device fundraising in the first quarter totaled $7.6 billion, thanks to Siemens Healthineers $5.2 billion IPO, which accounted for more than two-thirds of the total. Q1 M&A activity reached $6.7 billion, a significant rise from Q4's $3.9 billion. Similarly, aggregate first quarter diagnostics financings (at $1.5 billion) and M&As (at $543 million) also experienced substantial increases over the previous quarter.

Medtech Insight recorded 17 merger or acquisition deals in March, a rise from the nine deals recorded last month and in the same period last year. It was a busy month for Boston Scientific, which racked up two acquisitions, paying $460m for urology device maker NxThera and an undisclosed price for endoscopy firm EMcision.