Tokyo-based Terumo Medical will buy privately held Sequent Medical for ¥40 billion ($375 million), according to Nikkei Asian Review. The transaction marks the biggest deal for Japan's top medical device firm since it bought CardianBCT for $2.6 billion in 2011.
The purchase of the California-headquartered maker of brain catheters is expected to close in July, Nikkei said. The deal will boost Terumo in a market worth $2.2 billion globally in 2015 that's growing 10% annually. Other details of the sale terms were not immediately available.
It also sets up competition with Medtronic ($MDT) in the space with Terumo planning to merge Sequent with U.S.-based subsidiary and manufacturer MicroVention, the company it bought back in 2006--and one that has its own brain catheter device based on a coiling procedure, although one that takes more time than the Sequent process.
Through the MicroVention purchase, Terumo now holds a 16% market share--placing it at the third largest maker of devices to in catheters used to treat brain aneurysms.
According to Nikkei, the Sequent equipment to treat cerebral aneurysms has been approved for manufacture and marketing in Europe since 2010. Clinical trials are underway in the U.S., with approval seen in a few years.
The catheters are made from a mesh alloy of nickel-titanium and inserted into the femoral artery and delivered to the area affected by a cerebral aneurysm to stem the flow of blood and prevent rupture. It can be deployed quicker than the MicroVention product.
- here's the story from Nikkei Asian Review
Related Articles:
Japan's Terumo joins push in regenerative medicine
Terumo/CaridianBCT - Top 10 medical device deals of 2011