Tom is too polite to say so, but he’s got his own analysis of the deal, complete with the data to support his argument that Oracle may simply have needed to beat the clock, over at the In Vivo blog, where there’s lots of other good stuff as well.

For my money, the fact that Oracle faced a hard-and-fast deadline of next March 8 to make an acquisition dramatically increases the odds that this deal was rushed to the altar. The lack of clinical validation for ChemoFx alone should have been enough to give a reasonable investor pause (see my earlier piece, linked above, for details). But maybe Oracle’s Larry Feinberg figured he had to bet big to win under these circumstances, which in this case means taking on greater risk that the whole investment will be for naught.