Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) Cordis has snatched up a New Jersey maker of self-expanding, flexible stents, with the idea of expanding its own offerings in the technology to treat peripheral artery disease.
Cordis said it closed its purchase of Flexible Stenting Solutions, but neither side revealed financial details.
What this comes down to is a mega-device company (J&J/Cordis) looking to accelerate diversification of its own self-expanding stent line, with an acquisition helping to speed up the process. And new products in a hot area--self-expanding stents--will help with Cordis' bottom line, more than a year after the company slashed 1,000 jobs in order to scale back its stent production and focus on other cardiovascular related devices. (Self-expanding stents are considered less invasive.)
Cordis recently won expanded indication for its SMART-self expanding stent, and it can now be used for the superficial femoral artery and proximal popliteal artery. And the company bills the product as the only stent approved in the U.S. for those two indications as well as the iliac arteries. But the Flexible Stenting Solutions deal, gives Cordis the ability to go even further, to use the company's FlexStent products to expand the SMART stent line to treat peripheral artery disease, plus for treatments below the knee and anything venous-related.
Coming in handy, Flexible Stenting Solutions won a CE mark just in June to use its FlexStent to treat atherosclerotic disease in the iliac arteries. Variations of the stent are already designed to treat the femoropopliteal and biliary arteries. That last indication has been FDA cleared in the U.S. since 2009. An investigational device exemption study is under way to test FlexStent in patients with superficial femoral artery disease.
J&J Cordis will still have plenty of competitors, however, including companies such as Boston Scientific ($BSX).
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