Abiomed Inc.’s (NSDQ:ABMD recent good fortune may make it a prime acquisition target, according to Wall Street analysts.

A report from Swiss investment bank UBS AG placed the Danver, Mass.-based medical device maker on its list of 44 potential M&A candidates. That list also includes Thoratec Corp. (NSDQ:THOR) and HeartWare International Inc. (NSDQ:HTWR), two companies which were actually slated to merge two summers ago, before complications with federal regulators caused the companies to scuttle the deal.

Abiomed is coming off its best year in the company’s history, surpassing $100 million in sales on the strength of an 18 percent jump in annual revenues, powered by the robust business of its Impella heart pump. The company also pared its losses back to $11.7 million, from $19 million.

ABMD officials are forecasting an even better year this year, saying that fiscal 2012 sales will be in the range of $120 million to $125 million with Impella sales driving most of that growth.

Shares of ABMD have increased more than 67 percent in 2011 to date.

Heartware, meanwhile, has had a rougher go of it in 2011. Shares of the Framingham, Mass.-based ventricular assist device maker are down 11 percent in 2011 after a good start to the year. However, in April shares plummeted on news that a clinical trial of its mechanical heart pump showed higher-than-expected rates of blood clots.

UBS analysts Thomas Doerflinger and Jonathan Golub predicted that there would be close to 250 “major” deals in 2011, which would be the most since 2007, according to a report by Bloomberg news service.