EU competition regulators said Tuesday they had cleared the purchase by German conglomerate Siemens of the diagnostics unit of German drugs and chemicals group Bayer.

After reviewing the deal, the European Commission said it "would not significantly impede effective competition".

Bayer, the German maker of Aspirin, announced at the end of June that it was selling its diagnostics unit to Siemens in a deal valuing the subsidiary at 4.2 billion euros (5.3 billion dollars).

"The planned merger would create one of the leading groups in the European and world markets for immunochemistry," the commission said in a statement.

"However, the market investigation revealed that the horizontal overlaps between the activities of Siemens and Bayer Diagnostics would not result in the ability to increase prices for laboratories or consumers," it added.

The commission said that during its market investigation "customers and competitors identified a large number of alternative immunochemistry test firms in a position to replace Siemens and Bayer Diagnostics in case of price increases."

In 2005, Bayer's diagnostics operations posted 1.4 billion euros in sales. It employs 5,000 people worldwide.