Royal Philips announced a €1.9 billion deal on Wednesday to acquire The Spectranetics Corporation, with the goal of expanding its Image-Guided Therapy Business Group.

“Today’s exciting announcement follows a series of bolt-on acquisitions to strengthen our portfolio across the health continuum,” Frans van Houten, CEO of Philips, said in the announcement.

Late last week, Philips made an agreement to acquire the EEG technology manufacturer, Electrical Geodesics Inc., for approximately €32.9 million. In 2014, the company purchased the catheter-based imaging company, Volcano Corporation, for $1.2 billion.

Spectranetics is a leader in the fields of vascular intervention and lead management, which involves the minimally-invasive removal of implanted pacemakers and ICD leads. The company is currently growing in the double digits and expects its 2017 sales to be in the range of $293 million to $306 million.

Its portfolio includes a line of laser atherectomy catheters for treating blockages in coronary and peripheral arteries and the AngioSculpt scoring balloon to mechanically push the blockage aside. It also sells the only drug-coated scoring balloon on the market, which is called AngioSculptX, as well as the Stellarex drug-coated balloon that treats common to complex lesions and prevents blockage recurrence.

The Stellarex, which is CE marked and is under review for FDA approval, is Spectranetics’ most popular product. It’s been studied in drug-coated balloon IDE trials on the most complex patient population and demonstrated excellent clinical performance.

Philips is already a major player in the image-guided therapy market, which is valued at more than €6 billion. The company believes that Spectranetics will help it further expand and strengthen its stake in the market.

“Spectranetics’ highly competitive product range, integrated with our portfolio of interventional imaging systems, devices, software and services will enable clinicians to decide, guide, treat and confirm the appropriate cardiac and peripheral vascular treatment,” said van Houten.

“We believe that [Spectranetics’] product portfolio complements the Volcano vascular imaging [including intravascular ultrasound or IVUS and fractional flow reserve or FFR] and therapeutic product portfolio,” Mike Matson, analyst at Needham, told Yahoo! Finance.

He added that given the premium Philips is paying, and the short list of other potential buyers, that another bidder is unlikely.

Once the transaction is complete, Spectranetics and its 900-plus employees will become part of Philips’ Image-Guided Therapy Business Group, also known as Philips Volcano. The group is expected to grow to about €1 billion by 2020.

Philips plans to have the deal close in the third quarter of this year.

Cardiology Homepage