Deal activity in diagnostics has been way down in 1999 and while a few strategically sound deals are getting done, the scale has been very small. With financing and M&A options drying up, smaller diagnostics companies are more squeezed than ever. A plucky few have snared good deals. Here's how.

The sad saga of Oncor Inc. is slowly coming to an end, with the purchase in November of its {in situ} hybridization business by Ventana Medical Systems Inc.

Delisting is the financial equivalent of Siberian exile. And for the past six months, health care's small- cap stocks have been the target of an active purge.

If large diagnostics companies are consolidating at a record pace these days, smaller companies are also struggling for ways to cope with the brutalities of the current market. Some are cutting back on projects or looking to eliminate altogether their involvement in diagnostics. Others are forging relations with other small companies, something they haven't done much of in the past.