Johnson & Johnson (J&J) aims to add a fourth cardiac business to its portfolio in less than two years with the acquisition of V-Wave Ltd., which makes the Ventura interatrial shunt system for the treatment of heart failure. J&J will pay $600 million up front and an additional $1.1 billion contingent on meeting specified regulatory and commercial milestones. The deal is slated to close before the end of the year.

Andera Partners involvement in a string of recent deals in the cardiovascular space demonstrates the ongoing appetite for devices to treat heart diseases, Olivier Litzka, a partner at Andera Partners told BioWorld.

Edwards Lifesciences Corp. continued its recent acquisition streak with its buy of JC Medical Inc., a subsidiary of Genesis Medtech International. The sale included the intellectual property and commercial rights for the J-Valve system, a transcatheter aortic valve replacement for the treatment of severe aortic regurgitation.

The first patenting from Hemeo BV describes its development of Vantage, an artificial intelligence powered clinical decision support software for coagulation management.

Device makers and physicians alike were less than enthused about several features of the draft Medicare inpatient rule for fiscal year 2025, but thanks in part to support from the device industry, the final rule provides a new code that encompasses both left atrial appendage closure and ablation, a change that may reduce spending without dinging sales of these devices.

The U.S. FDA has made clear its expectations of batteries and accessories for automated external defibrillators, but at least one maker of replacement AED batteries seems to have not got the message.

An artificial intelligence algorithm developed at Sheba Medical Center in Israel can identify patients at high risk of pulmonary embolism as soon as they walk through the hospital doors, a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research found. Using only information available from the patient’s medical history, the machine learning tool flagged high-risk patients before the initial clinical checkup occurred.

In what represents the first patenting to emerge from Endeavor Med Inc., its founder and chief executive officer, Imran Faruqi, describes their development of a novel device capable of providing non-invasive cardiac pacing, defibrillation, and cardioversion, and which uses pacing currents at less than half that required by traditional chest pads.

Croívalve Ltd. raised $16 million in a series B financing round that will be used to fund a clinical trial in the U.S. looking at the safety and performance of its Duo system to treat patients with severe or greater symptomatic tricuspid regurgitation.

The recent €15 million (US$16.3 million) deal that Affluent Medical SAS signed with Edwards Lifesciences Inc. for its heart products does not take away from its ambitions of creating a European med-tech company, Sébastien Ladet, CEO of Affluent Medical, told BioWorld, but was part of the company’s broader strategy to expand the markets for its products.