London-based Smith & Nephew Plc had been considering acquiring U.S. medical equipment maker NuVasive, as reported Financial Times on Friday, citing people familiar with the talks.
The possible deal would be worth around $3 billion.
But both refused to comment when contacted by the Reuters and said they do not comment on market speculations.
FT said that exact terms of negotiations might not be known and also talks could end without coming to be on an agreement.
If talks concluded successfully, then this acquisition will be counted as first and the biggest step taken by the Namal Nawana, Chief Executive Officer of Smith & Nephew, since April of last year when he took the charge of his current assignment.
Nawana was appointed for expertise in deal-making and for his vast knowledge of the markets in the United States from where the British company generates about 50 percent of its revenue.
His most recent appointment was as chief executive officer of Alere, a medical diagnostics company, where he also remained part of company’s merger with the Abbott Laboratories, a deal of worth $5.3 billion occurred in 2017.
Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Stryker Corp and Johnson & Johnson are the biggest rivals to Smith & Nephew, and in order to compete better with those rivals, Smith & Nephew has been facing the pressure to as find new sources of growth as well as improve its margins.
Smith & Nephew, which makes knee replacement products, in last month, also completed transaction of acquiring Ceterix Orthopaedics, which was a small sized California-based surgical tools maker to be used in knee replacements.
NuVasive is a San Diego, California-based company which designs and makes medical instruments for spinal surgeries, and its current market value is of about $2.55 billion, while that of Smith & Nephew is $13.28 billion GBP ($17.19 billion).
