BTG, a British specialist healthcare group has acquired Novate Medical, a pulmonary embolism-focused medtech startup. While the upfront fee is a modest $20 million, BTG is on the hook for up to $130 million more in potential commercial and sales-related milestone payments.
Under the deal, BTG will pick up Novate’s Sentry device, a bioconvertible filter for the inferior vena cava (IVC) that scored FDA clearance last year. It is indicated for the prevention of recurrent pulmonary embolism (PE), or the blockage of a major artery in the lung usually caused by a blood clot that has traveled from elsewhere in the body. The Sentry filter is indicated for patients at high risk of PE for whom anticoagulants have failed or are contraindicated, and in patients requiring emergency treatment for PE.
BTG plans to launch the device in the U.S. in the second half of its 2018/2019 fiscal year.
“This bolt-on acquisition further enhances BTG’s strength in the vascular space.” said BTG CEO Louise Makin, in a statement. “Novate’s unique IVC filter offers our existing customers a highly complementary product in the management of PE.”
The Sentry device joins the Ekos Control Unit 4.0, a system that uses acoustic pulses to dissolve blood clots in patients with PE. BTG picked up that device in its $180 million acquisition of Ekos Corporation in 2013.
2018 has been pretty quiet deal-wise for BTG—its last acquisition was another bolt-on in late 2017. It paid $65 million up front for Roxwood Medical, which makes cardiovascular specialty catheters. An additional $15 million was up for grabs in commercial milestones. And in 2016, the company dropped $84.5 million up front for a cryoablation company, Galil Medical. Its portfolio of cryoablation systems and needles are used for treatment and palliative care in kidney cancers as well as in urology.