Boston, MA – October 24, 2007 – Covington Associates LLC announced today it has acted as  advisor to Inverness Medical Innovations (“Inverness”) in its agreement to acquire Alere Medical, Inc. (“Alere”), a leading provider of health and care management services helping patients with chronic illnesses manage their conditions through a unique combination of at-home monitoring, patient education, and nurse-patient relationships. The purchase price is $302 million, comprising approximately $125 million in cash and $177 million in Inverness common stock.

Alere Medical, Inc., headquartered in Reno, Nevada, is a leader in specialized health management services focusing on a patient-centric, programmatic approach to comprehensive personal health support.  Inverness anticipates that there will be many opportunities between Alere and its existing point of care organization and Inverness’ recent pending and completed acquisitions.

Commenting on the transaction, Ron Zwanziger, CEO of Inverness, said “The acquisition of Alere Medical is an exciting opportunity to enter the disease management industry, a move which fits naturally with our goal of enabling individuals to take charge of their health. Alere’s expertise in patient monitoring and particularly in home chronic heart failure management complements our cardiac diagnostic technologies being developed at Biosite in San Diego and at Stirling Medical in Scotland. The Covington Associates Team has added great value to Inverness’ ability to grow through acquisitions and expand our diagnostic capabilities in our cardiology business line.”

“The acquisition of Alere allows Inverness to provide a broader array of products and services to the healthcare community by combining leading diagnostic solutions with care management capabilities,” said Tom Cibotti, Managing Director at Covington Associates.

The transaction is expected to close prior to the end of the calendar year, subject to satisfaction of regulatory and other customary closing conditions.

About Inverness
Inverness Medical Innovations enables individuals to take charge of improving their health and quality of life by developing new capabilities in near-patient diagnosis, monitoring and health management. A global leader in rapid point-of-care diagnostics, Inverness’ products, as well as its new product development efforts, focus on infectious disease, cardiology, oncology, drugs of abuse and women’s health.

For additional information, visit www.invernessmedical.com.

About Alere Medical, Inc.
Alere’s integrated care monitoring system identifies and monitors all medium- and high-risk patients, and prioritizes those patients to facilitate efficient workflow. With published outcomes that exceed those of any competitor, Alere’s health management programs improve clinical outcomes for patients and maximize savings for clients. Alere Medical has received NCQA Patient and Practitioner Full Accreditation of its disease management programs for heart failure, coronary artery disease, diabetes, asthma and COPD. For more information, visit www.alere.com.

About Covington Associates LLC

Covington Associates is a specialty investment banking firm founded in 1991 serving business service, consumer, industrial, healthcare and technology companies throughout the country.  Focused on mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity capital raising, debt and equity restructuring, and strategic advisory assignments for middle market companies, Covington Associates has completed transactions ranging in value from $10 million to over $1 billion for both private and publicly traded companies.  To learn more about Covington Associates, visit www.covingtonassociates.com.