Medtronic agrees to acquire Lazarus Effect to expand its neurovascular business
Medtronic agreed to acquire Lazarus Effect, a medical device company with an acute ischemic stroke product that is approved in Europe but not in the U.S. The deal, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is an all-cash transaction valued at $100 million.
Lazarus Effect will be included in Medtronic’s neurovascular division within the restorative therapies group. On Aug. 31, Medtronic acquired Medina Medical, a medical device company developing a device to treat cerebral aneurysms that is also now in Medtronic’s neurovascular division.
Lazarus’s nitinol-mesh cover device folds over a stent retriever during clot retrieval, wraps around the stent with the clot inside and captures material during removal from a blood vessel. European regulators approved the device in November 2014.
The mesh cover is intended to fit with Medtronic’s Solitaire stent retriever, which is FDA-approved for use in the flow restoration of patients with ischemic stroke due to large intracranial vessel occlusion.
In June, the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association released stroke treatment guidelines that recommend using stent retrievers in conjunction with intravenous tissue plasminogen activator therapy for eligible patients.
Approximately 240,000 patients in the U.S. are eligible for treatment with a stent retriever each year after suffering an acute ischemic stroke, although Medtronic noted only 13,000 stent retriever procedures were performed in the U.S. in 2014.
Medtronic expects the deal to be earnings neutral in fiscal year 2016 and meet its long-term financial metrics for acquisitions.
In addition to the Lazarus Effect and Medina Medical deals, Medtronic has also acquired a few other companies recently, including CardioInsight, Aptus Endosystems, RF Surgical Systems and Twelve.
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.