US- based St. Jude Medical has acquired Endosense, a Switzerland-based company for a purchase price of $170m (CHF159m) up-front plus the potential for up to $161m (CHF150m) in subsequent milestone payments.
While the acquisition is expected to complement St. Jude's medical business, Endosense in turn may boost its growth through St. Jude's global presence and distribution capabilities.
St. Jude Medical president of the cardiovascular and ablation technologies division Frank J Callaghan noted the acquisition of Endosense further strengthens the firm's industry-leading portfolio of products to treat patients with cardiac arrhythmias, and provides an opportunity to accelerate its market share capture in the $900m global cardiac ablation catheter market.
"This transaction significantly accelerates our timeline to providing an irrigated ablation catheter that incorporates force sensing in both international and U.S. markets, and has potential future applications across other St. Jude Medical technology platforms as well," Callaghan added.
Endosense has developed the TactiCath irrigated ablation catheter, a device that gives physicians real-time readings of how much pressure they're applying to the heart wall during ablation.
TactiCath which offers important improvements over previous-generation ablation catheters is already CE marked to treat atrial fibrillation and supraventricular tachycardia.
Endosense plans to submit its premarket approval application to the US Food and Drug Administration in support of a paroxysmal atrial fibrillation indication before the end of 2013.
Professor of medicine and principal investigator in the TOCCASTAR trial at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York Dr Vivek Reddy noted the force sensing is a tremendous advancement in cardiac ablation that will potentially improve safety and efficacy, likely becoming a standard for all cardiac ablations.
"As the first and most studied force-sensing catheter on the market, TactiCath now provides St. Jude Medical with a best-in-class ablation catheter," Dr Reddy added.
