Terumo Corp. (TYO:4543) said today it inked a strategic partnership deal with CytoSorbents to commercialize its CytoSorb blood purification adsorber for cardiac surgery applications.
New Jersey-based CytoSorbents said its CytoSorb adsorber is designed to reduce excessive levels of inflammatory mediators in cardiac surgery and critically ill patients.
“Our collaboration with CytoSorbents enables us to offer this innovative, easy-to-use blood purification therapy to address our customers’ most challenging cardiac cases. CytoSorb integrates with the heart-lung machine platform, giving surgical teams, for the first time, the ability to safely reduce dangerous inflammatory mediators in real-time as they are being generated during cardiac surgery. We believe Terumo’s extensive relationships in cardiac surgery centers, combined with the benefits and simple implementation of CytoSorb, will accelerate adoption of CytoSorb as a cost-effective, standard-of-care therapy to control severe inflammation in patients undergoing cardiac surgery,” Terumo perfusion& surgical devices division prez Arik Anderson said in a press release.
Terumo will gain exclusive rights to distribute the Cytosorb cardiopulmonary bypass procedure pack for intra-operative use during cardiac surgery in France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, the companies said.
“We are proud to begin working with Terumo. Terumo has an outstanding reputation for its commitment to the highest level of patient care, making it the ideal cardiac surgery partner to advance CytoSorb in these European countries,” CytoSorbents CEO Dr. Phillip Chan said in prepared remarks.
The CytoSorb adsorber has CE Mark approval in the European Union as an extracorporeal cytokine adsorber to reduce the excessive production of inflammatory mediators in a broad range of conditions, including cardiac surgery, Terumo said.
“The success of CytoSorb under this agreement provides the foundation for future expansion into strategically important markets, such as Japan, where Terumo is a leading medical device manufacturer,” CytoSorbents biz dev veep Chris Cramer said in a prepared statement.
In July, Terumo said that its MicroVention subsidiary closed the $280 million acquisition of Sequent Medical and its Web aneurysm embolization device.
The Web implant is made of a Nitinol mesh that is delivered in a “stent-like” manner and deployed into the pouch formed by an aneurysm in order to prevent blood from flowing in. Sequent won CE Mark approval for the Web system in 2010, and is running an FDA-approved investigational device exemption pivotal trial as it seeks U.S. clearance.
The acquisition includes an extra $100 million in milestones pegged to development and commercial milestones.
