Boston Scientific Acquires Millipede, Expanding Cardiology Products

In pursuit of better treatments for patients with advanced valvular heart disease, two medical device companies completed a $540 million acquisition deal in late December 2018.

Boston Scientific has officially acquired the rest of Millipore Inc., a Santa Rosa, California-based medical device company in a $325 million deal, following an initial purchase of Millipede shares for $90 million last January. Millipede was founded in 2012 by Dr. Steven F. Bolling, a cardiac surgeon at the University of Michigan.

Joining Boston Scientific’s interventional cardiology products is Millipede’s IRIS, a transcatheter annuloplasty ring used to treat patients with mitral regurgitation (MR).

MR occurs when blood flows back into the left atrium due to a dysfunctional mitral valve or as a consequence of cardiomyopathy, and is the most common valvular disease in the Western world. MR can lead to heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, stroke and death.

Open-heart surgery may not be feasible for patients with severe MR, therefore minimally invasive approaches such as transcatheter or transseptal delivery are under investigation.

“Upon commercialization, we believe the IRIS system can meet the needs of a currently underserved patient population that requires physiological, less invasive options to treat functional mitral regurgitation in patients with progressive heart failure,” said Professor Ian Meredith, AM, executive vice president and global chief medical officer of Boston Scientific.

An additional $125 million payment will be required upon achievement of a commercialization milestone. An early clinical trial yielded promising results for the safety and efficacy of IRIS.

“We are very satisfied with the early results of our clinical program and are excited to see this technology further leveraged by Boston Scientific to expand the mitral repair solutions for patients around the world,” said Randy Lashinski, president and CEO of Millipede.

Boston Scientific made several significant acquisitions in 2018. In November, they paid $4.2 billion to acquire British Technology Group International, a company that specializes in the acquisition, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products.

With the Millipede acquisition, Boston Scientific can position itself to become a fierce competitor in the transcatheter mitral repair and replacement market.