St. Jude Finalizes Acquisition Of CardioMEMS For $450 Million

By Jof Enriquez,
Follow me on Twitter @jofenriq

St. Jude Medical, Inc. has completely acquired heart failure sensor company CardioMEMS for $450 million in a transaction that closed at the end of last month.

Minneapolis-based St. Jude, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cardiac and neurological devices, previously held a 19 percent stake in Atlanta-based CardioMEMS and has recently exercised its option to buy the remaining 81 percent of the company, according to an Arcapita Ventures press release.

St. Jude had earlier indicated its plan to acquire the remainder of CardioMEMS when both companies announced U.S. FDA approval of the first-of-its-kind wireless heart failure monitoring implant called the CardioMEMS HF System. The novel device had also recently secured CE approval in the European Union.   

The implant contains a tiny sensor implanted in the pulmonary artery that can directly measure pulmonary artery (PA) pressure and transmit the information to a database remotely. Non-invasive, real-time monitoring of PA pressure could help nurses and physicians monitor and intervene when appropriate, at the earliest stages of heart failure, so that the likelihood of hospitalization is reduced.

During the clinical trial called CHAMPION (CardioMEMS Heart Sensor Allows Monitoring of Pressure to Improve Outcomes in NYHA Class III Patients), the implant had been shown to decrease hospitalization rates among heart failure patients at 6 months and 15 months by 28 percent and 37 percent respectively, according to the press release.

“This is a challenging, costly and often frustrating environment to build a business, especially in healthcare”, John Huntz, Chairman of CardioMEMS, Inc. said in the statement. “Jay Yadav and the CardioMEMS’ team not only came up with an innovative and revolutionary approach to treating heart failure but have spent the past decade making this a reality – it was my pleasure to work with a great team of people who are smart, have high integrity, and are doing really hard things, really well. Arcapita is proud to have been the lead investor in this novel technology which will provide invaluable support to millions of heart failure patients and reduce hospitalization rates in the U.S. and around the world.”