Volcano Corporation, a provider of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), functional measurement (FM) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) products designed to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of coronary and peripheral vascular disease, has acquired Novelis, Inc., a privately-held company with proprietary ultrasonic visualization and therapy technology for minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic devices.

Novelis' proprietary forward-Looking IVUS technology platform is expected to build upon Volcano's existing suite of products and further enhance Volcano's position as an imaging technology leader in the field of interventional medicine by enabling IVUS and associated therapies in the interventional cardiology market. Volcano expects to add the Novelis products and capability onto its s5i multi-modality integrated platform/hub.

Novelis' core product line is based on Forward-Looking Intravascular Ultrasound (FLIVUS) technology. The product line includes an image-guided crossing catheter that combines visualization, steerability and RF tissue ablation, which is designed to permit Interventional Cardiologists to safely cross chronic total occlusions ("CTO") in the coronary and peripheral arteries, and an FLIVUS catheter (imaging-only version) to facilitate current guidewire-based CTO crossing techniques as well as other potential product offerings with possible applications outside of vascular medicine.
This platform technology may have applications for numerous minimally invasive procedures including plaque modification in the coronary or peripheral arteries, guidance in structural heart procedures, including cardiac ablation guidance and therapy, breast biopsy guidance and therapy, and orthopedic (spine) guidance and therapy.

Under the terms of the agreement, Volcano paid approximately $12 million in cash at closing. In addition, Volcano may make an additional cash payment of $3 million based on the achievement of a specific regulatory milestone.

"As was the case with our acquisition of CardioSpectra's OCT business, the Novelis offering represents a highly complementary technology to our IVUS offering. By adding new modalities, we will leverage the Volcano integrated imaging suite provided by our s5i integrated platform and expect to drive installed-base growth and per-procedure utilization as we address sizeable therapy markets that are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars," said Scott Huennekens, president and chief executive officer of Volcano.

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