Two corporate deals involving Medtronic were announced Wednesday, including a $350 million acquisition of one company's gynecology portfolio and a second, strategic investment of up to $52 million in a company that makes robotically assisted spine-surgery systems.
In the first deal, Minnesota-run Medtronic said it would acquire London-based Smith & Nephew's devices for treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB), including the Truclear system for treatment of polyps and fibroids. The $350 million deal is expected to close this summer. Last year, the gynecology division produced $56 million in revenue for Smith & Nephew.
Truclear allows minimally invasive surgical treatment for AUB that can be done on an outpatient basis. Medtronic cited statistics that more than 100 million women have AUB, but fewer than 15 percent get treatment annually. Other treatment options for AUB include medical therapy, dilation and curettage, polypectomy, tissue ablation, and hysterectomy.
"We believe gynecology is one of the most underserved specialty procedure areas," Chris Barry, president of surgical innovations in Medtronic's minimally invasive therapies group, said in a news release.
The second Medtronic deal involved a smaller company called Mazor Robotics, which makes a robotically assisted surgical system for use during spine surgeries.
Mazor, an Israeli firm, said it signed two agreements with Medtronic, including one that gives Medtronic the potential to gain exclusive global sales and distribution rights to Mazor's future "next-generation" spine-surgery devices, upon completion of certain milestones through 2017.
Today, Mazor makes a device called the Renaissance Guidance System, which allows a spine surgeon to conduct detailed 3-D modeling of vertebrae before surgery and then use a robotically assisted system, which is rigidly attached to the patient, to guide the surgeon's tools and implants with high accuracy.
A news release from Mazor said it is already codeveloping products with Medtronic. The agreement says Medtronic committed to buying 15 of Mazor's future systems in 2016, and will make Mazor Medtronic's only strategic partners for the development of robotic-based spine systems and applications.
