While other large med-tech companies are slimming their portfolios, Boston Scientific Corp. plans to beef its up considerably with the acquisition of Apollo Endosurgery Inc. for $10 per share for the 41.7 million shares outstanding. Including the debt assumed, the all-cash deal has an enterprise value of $615 million. The $10 per share price represents a 67% premium to yesterday’s $6 close for Apollo shares. The companies expect the transaction to close in the first half of 2023.
While other large med-tech companies are slimming their portfolios, Boston Scientific Corp. plans to beef its up considerably with the acquisition of Apollo Endosurgery Inc. for $10 per share for the 41.7 million shares outstanding or $417 million. Including the debt assumed, the all-cash deal has an enterprise value of $615 million. The $10 per share price represents a 67% premium to the Nov. 28, 2022, $6 close for Apollo shares. The companies expect the transaction to close in the first half of 2023.
While NASA gets the glory for exploration of the vast unknown of space, Bionaut Labs Ltd. hopes to reap similar fame by transforming travel through the brain with Bionauts, microrobots designed to deliver therapeutic payloads across the blood-brain barrier. To help achieve that mission, the company raised $43.2 million in a series B financing round led by Khosla Ventures.
In an interview with BioWorld, Ceros Financial Services CEO Mark Goldwasser predicted significant changes in the financing market for med-tech companies in the coming year. While special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deals are not anticipated to return to 2022 levels, Goldwasser expects “we’re going to see a lot of transactions out of big strategics” and a rally in the equity market in the first half of 2023.
Medtronic plc guided investors’ expectations lower for the balance of its fiscal year, citing pummeling from foreign exchange rates, continued delays in elective procedures and ongoing supply chain issues. In response, the stock (NYSE:MDT) dropped from its close at $82.43 on Monday to open at $76.91 Tuesday. The company reported $7.59 billion in revenue for the first half of its fiscal 2023. That represented a 3% drop on a year-over-year basis, missing consensus expectations of $7.7 billion, in part because of a $457 million foreign currency hit.
Masimo Corp.’s pulse oximetry technology avoids the dangerous under-recognition of low oxygen levels in people of color that plagues many pulse oximeters on the market, a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing found. By integrating four additional signal processing engines to the standard algorithm, the Masimo Signal Extraction Technology (SET) system provides equally clinically accurate readings for patients of all skin tones even with movement and at low perfusion.
Sema4 Holdings Corp., Illumina Inc. and Pear Therapeutics Inc. joined a growing list of med-tech companies responding to what Pear CEO Corey McCann called a “challenging macroenvironment” by spinning off, selling or shuttering non-core lines of business and slimming payroll.
COVID-19 has vexed researchers, physicians and public health authorities since its emergence with an unexpectedly rapid rate of mutation. In addition to requiring constant adjustment of therapeutics and repeated vaccinations, the ever-changing virus has rapidly made scores of prognostic models irrelevant within months of development. Feinstein researchers appear to have met the challenge with an auto-updating model that predicts 28-day survival in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
Medtronic plc’s new Extended infusion set shows the advantages of tending to details. Tubing doesn’t get much respect, but the changes Medtronic made to its set will substantially reduce the burden of disease management for patients with diabetes who use insulin pumps. The Medtronic Extended infusion set can be used for up to seven days, more than doubling the time between changes. The changes also sharply reduced insulin loss, resulting in a 25% reduction in waste of the increasingly expensive medication.
Trisalus Life Sciences Inc. agreed to merge with Medtech Acquisition Corp. (MTAC) in a deal that allows the drug/device company’s management to meet three out of three goals: quick cash, retained control and faster completion of key clinical trials.
