Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) said it would sell 50.1 percent of its Respiratory Solutions business to Apax Partners, a private equity firm and form a joint venture that will operate as a new, independent company. BD will retain 49.9 percent of the newly formed joint venture as a significant but non-controlling minority owner. The transaction values the entire business at nearly $500 million and is expected to close in late fiscal year 2016 or early fiscal year 2017. There is an active CEO search underway for the new respiratory unit and it will be renamed and rebranded as an independent company.

Corvia Medical Inc. said it obtained FDA approval of an IDE for its Interatrial shunt device (IASD) designed to treat diastolic heart failure. The Tewksbury, Mass.-based company also said it has entered into an exclusive option-to-purchase agreement with an undisclosed strategic partner.

Johnson & Johnson’s year did not get off to a great start. Not that last year was any better. I mean the company report lagging sales in its medical device’s market. But the start of 2016, led off with the Brunswick-N.J.-based company reporting that it would lay off about 3,000 people from its medical device division. Or about 6 percent of all medical device jobs and about 2.5 percent of J&J’s global workforce - for those of you that dig percents instead of raw numbers. Most of the layoffs would come from the orthopedics, surgery and cardiovascular segments and result...

The race to gain an even larger share of the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) market is officially underway. Dublin-based Medtronic plc. said it received FDA approval for a trial for an expanded indication for the Corevalve Evolut R system. The indication would target patients with aortic stenosis, who are at a low surgical mortality risk as determined by a heart team.