Medtronic spends $1B on heart valve acquisitions
(AP) - Minneapolis-based medical device maker Medtronic says it will expand the company's heart valve business at a price of more than $1 billion.
Medtronic says it will pay $700 million for Irvine, Calif.-based Corevalve and $325 million for Israeli firm Ventor Technologies. Both companies make replacement heart valves.
Corevalve's technology has been implanted in 2,600 patients worldwide, though it has not yet been cleared for use by the Food and Drug Administration.
Rather than performing open-heart surgery, the company's system allows a surgeon to insert a replacement heart valve through a small incision in the leg artery.
Ventor Technologies' products are especially designed for patients with heart valves that don't open completely, but who are too sick to undergo surgery.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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