Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) CEO Omar Ishrak has literally put his money where his mouth is since saying in early June that the world’s largest pure-play medtech maker would look for small-scale investments – $1.05 billion of that money, in fact.
That’s Fridley, Minn.-based Medtronic’s announced spend on M&A since June 5, when Ishrak said the company would turn its attention to snatching up early-stage firms.
“We’re going to look at early technologies, in the U.S. primarily, where there maybe opportunities which we haven’t been able to participate in to the degree that we’d like to, to create a long-term technology pipeline of early-stage technologies that we think can make a difference,” Ishrak said at the time, noting that Medtronic would still “opportunistically” look at larger buyouts, “but that’s a matter of our overall financial bandwidth and our management bandwidth.”
Medtronic has snatched up 5 different businesses since June:
- $235 million for RF Surgical Systems and its RF-tag based device system designed to help prevent “never events” such as leaving a surgical sponge in a patient after surgery, using low radiofrequency signals to track the RF tags embedded in surgical gauze, sponges and towels. Medtronic said it plans to fold RF Surgical into its surgical solutions division of its minimally invasive technologies business.
- $110 million to acquire Aptus Endosystems and its Heli-FX aortic securement device. After the purchase, Medtronic said it plans to continue Aptus’ ANCHOR registry for the Heli-FX device and to pursue approval for a <10mm infrarenal proximal neck indication for its Endurant stent graft with the use of the Heli-FX EndoAnchor system. Two versions of the device have won CE Mark approval in the European Union and FDA clerance.
- $93 million for CardioInsight Technologies and its heart mapping ECVue, a non-invasive electrocardiographic device that uses body surface electrical data and anatomical data to reconstruct and display 3-D maps and “other useful measures” of the heart’s electrical activity.
- $458 million for Foundry incubator spinout Twelve Inc. and its transcatheter mitral valve implant. The deal calls for a $408 million payment once the deal closes, expected in October, and another $50 million pegged to CE Mark approval in the European Union for the Twelve TMVI device.
- $150 million to acquire Medina Medical and its embolization coil, a self-expanding mesh designed to fill the inside of a brain aneurysm. The device won CE Mark approval in the European Union last year.
