Edwards to Acquire Heart Valve Company

In a transaction that will give the company new technology in heart valve replacement, Edwards Life Sciences Corp. (Irvine, CA, USA; www.edwards.com) has agreed to acquire Percutaneous Valve Technologies, Inc. (PVT, Fort Lee, NJ, USA) for U.S.$125 million in cash. Upon completion of key milestones, Edwards will make additional payments up to $30 million.

PVT has developed new technology for heart valve replacement that integrates balloon-expandable stent technology with a percutaneously delivered tissue heart valve. This permits a less-invasive procedure that can be performed in a cardiac catheterization laboratory under local anesthesia. The first human implant was performed in 2002 and a clinical trial is now under way in France. At the same time, Edwards is also pursuing three of its own percutaneous heart valve development programs.

"This technology continues to be very promising for patients, particularly those who are not candidates for conventional heart valve surgery today,” said Marin Leon, M.D., president and CEO of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York (NY, USA). "Patients could avoid the invasiveness of open-heart surgery, and the recovery period would be dramatically reduced.”




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