TAVR valves drive sales growth for Edwards Lifesciences

Edwards Lifesciences reported on Feb. 1 fourth-quarter 2017 sales of $888.5 million, a 16 percent growth year over year.

The increase was largely driven by the success of the Transcatheter Heart Valve Therapy (THVT) division, which brought in $519.3 million in revenue for the quarter—a 20.2 percent growth from the same period in 2016. United States THVT sales totaled $326.7 million.

"These strong results were driven by robust therapy adoption across the more than 575 TAVR (transcatheter aortic valve replacement) centers, and we did not experience as much of a slowdown as we typically see in the last weeks of the year,” chairman and CEO Michael A. Mussallem said in a press release. “Additionally, our best-in-class SAPIEN 3 valve continued to provide excellent outcomes, including faster patient recovery, enhanced quality of life, and exceptional value to the healthcare system.”

Indeed, a cost-effectiveness analysis of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) using Edwards’ SAPIEN XT or SAPIEN 3 valves found TAVR to be the “economically dominant” strategy over surgical aortic valve replacement. The SAPIEN 3 demonstrated lower paravalvular regurgitation rates than previous SAPIEN valves, and was among the newer-generation devices that were found to improve TAVR outcomes for patients with aortic regurgitation.

Edwards’ surgical heart valve sales for the quarter were $204.9 million, reflecting a more modest 8.2 percent bump year over year.

"Our strong 2017 reinforces our confidence in our focused innovation strategy and longer-term outlook, and we look forward to an exciting 2018 as we continue to aggressively invest in our future,” Mussallem said. “We expect to achieve a number of important milestones supporting progress in the development of transformative therapies across all of our product lines. Our differentiated strategy continues to benefit patients and serve us well as we plan for future growth and value creation.”