HEALTH CARE

Rival Service Providers to Merge: Tokos Medical Corp. of Santa Ana and Healthdyne Inc. of Marietta, Ga., which offer similar products and home-based care for women with high-risk pregnancies, said they plan to merge later this year. The combined company would have annual sales of about $160 million. Tokos and Healthdyne executives said cost savings achieved through staff cuts and other means should enable the combined company to break into the black next year. Last year, Tokos reported a loss of $5.9 million on sales of $100.7 million. Healthdyne’s maternity management unit, the portion of the company that will merge with Tokos, lost $1.2 million on sales of $66.4 million last year, company officials said. Healthdyne will spin off its clinical information services subsidiary before the merger. Tokos and Healthdyne said they anticipate that the new company will maintain operations in Santa Ana and Marietta.