Medical devices are displayed at Welch Allyn Inc. in Skaneateles Falls in 2014.Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com

Skaneateles, N.Y. — Baxter International Inc. has completed its acquisition of Hillrom, a global medical equipment maker with a major presence in Skaneateles.

Baxter, a medical products company based in Deerfield, Illinois, paid $156 a share in cash for Hillrom for a total purchase price of $10.5 billion. Baxter also assumed Hillrom’s debt, which brought the total value of the acquisition to $12.5 billion.

Baxter announced the deal earlier this year.

Hillrom, headquartered in Chicago, is the owner of Skaneateles-based Welch Allyn.

Hillrom bought Welch Allyn for $2.05 billion in 2015. It employs about 1,000 people in Skaneateles, where it makes medical diagnostic equipment.

The Baxter deal marks the second time in seven years that Welch Allyn has changed hands after a century of ownership by the Allyn family.

Welch Allyn was founded in 1915 by Dr. Francis Welch and inventor William Noah Allyn, who together developed the world’s first hand-held, direct-illuminating ophthalmoscope to peer into patients’ eyes. The company later branched out into making many other types of diagnostic medical equipment.

Hillrom’s acquisition of Welch Allyn made local officials nervous about the future of the company. However, Hillrom eased those concerns when it opened a $12.7 million expansion of Welch Allyn’s manufacturing plant on State Street Road in 2018.

Baxter did not mention Hillrom’s Skaneateles plant in its news release on the completed acquisition. But it did say it plans to expand Hillrom and Welch Allyn products into new international markets.

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