After a year of holding the option to acquire Millipede, Boston Scientific decided to do it a year before the option ran out. When the pair signed the agreement last January, Boston Scientific paid $90 million for a portion of the mitral regurgitation startup’s shares. Now, Boston Scientific is spending $325 million to pick up the rest of Millipede’s shares.
The acquisition will add Millipede’s IRIS Transcatheter Annuloplasty Ring System to Boston Scientific’s structural heart unit. The device is being developed to treat patients with severe mitral regurgitation — a condition characterized by blood flowing the wrong way in the heart—who are not candidates for open-heart surgery. The ring is delivered using a transcatheter procedur
The deal was structured so that either company could launch the option by the end of 2019. Boston Scientific could choose to fork over $325 million and commit to pay a $125 million commercial milestone to buy up Millipede at any time before it finishes a clinical trial. Alternatively, after completing that trial, Millipede could have compelled Boston Scientific to acquire it.
Boston Scientific Chief Medical Officer Ian Meredith, MD, PhD, said that 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.”
“This device is designed to be highly customizable to a specific patient’s mitral anatomy and disease state and is repositionable and retrievable to promote a high-quality outcome.”
Boston Scientific expects the deal to close in the first quarter of 2019. Since February 2018, Boston Scientific has acquired Cryterion, which makes cardiac cryoablation devices, for $202 million upfront; and Claret Medical and its neurovascular brain-protection system for $220 million upfront. Finally, it has agreed to acquire BTG for $4.2 billion in cash. VTN
