Covidien to Acquire Blood Vessel Device Developer

(Yale School of Medicine/Wikimedia Commons)

Covidien — a maker of medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and health care supplies based in Dublin, Ireland — agreed to acquire CV Ingenuity in Fremont, California, a developer of a device to treat peripheral artery disease. Financial terms of the deal, expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2013, were not disclosed.

Peripheral artery disease is a condition where plaque, made of fat, cholesterol, calcium, and fibrous tissue, builds up in the arteries that carry blood to the head, organs, and limbs. The build up of plaque can lead to hardening and narrowing of the arteries, which limits the flow of blood to organs and other parts of the body.

CV Ingenuity’s technology is a system for delivering drugs it calls drug coated balloons to treat narrowing blood vessels associated with peripheral artery disease. The company says drug coated balloons deliver drugs that inhibit restenosis, the recurrence of narrowing arteries, that also occurs after coronary angioplasty, a procedure to open narrowed or blocked coronary arteries. The technology, notes CV Ingenuity, allows for a more natural healing process in the blood vessels by leaving no implant behind after exposure to the drug.

Drug coated balloon technology is still considered by Food and Drug Administration to be an investigational device, and Covidien does not expect it to receive full FDA approval before 2017. Covidien plans to spend more than $20 million in the second half of its 2013 fiscal year on R&D for the drug coated balloon device, and more than $30 million in fiscal 2014.

Covidien had revenues of $11.9 billion in its last (2012) fiscal year. The company has some 43,000 employees in 70 countries.

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• Device Maker Teleflex Acquires Biomedical Materials Company

Hat tip: Fortune/Term Sheet

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