The European Commission has cleared U.S. medical equipment-maker Danaher Corp to buy General Electric's healthcare life sciences biopharma business but with divestment conditions.

In February, Danaher said it wanted to buy the GE biopharma business for $21.4 billion – a deal it said would boost the company's presence in the biopharma industry and give it access to tools for research and development of drugs.

But the EU said Danaher will first have to sell five businesses in the microcarriers, chromatography and filtration sectors for the merger to go ahead.

"Danaher offered to divest several businesses in order to preserve effective competition in the supply of inputs to the bioprocessing industry," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, said in a statement. "This is to the benefit of patients."

Danaher and GE's biopharma business both make products and services used in the bioprocessing industries, such as single-use technology products (bioreactors, mixers or connectors), cell culture media and sera, microcarriers, bioprocessing filtration, and chromatography products.

Following an investigation into the effects of the merger, the European Commission had serious concerns that it would reduce competition in the markets for microcarriers, bioprocess filtration, chromatography, and molecular characterisation. These are products and techniques used to make cell cultures, to purify and separate components, and to analyse interactions between molecules.

After the Commission expressed its concerns, Danaher offered to sell five companies,  including FortéBio businesses, based in the U.S. and China, and Pall Biotech businesses based in France, the U.K., the U.S., and China.

The Commission will give its formal approval to Danaher to acquire GE Biopharma once it is satisfied that the sale of the businesses has taken place in line with the agreement.