Medical device manufacturer Boston Scientific has acquired the rest of the shares in one of its portfolio companies, US-based mitral regurgitation system developer Millipede Medical, for $325m.
The transaction is expected to close within the first quarter of this year. Millipede will receive an additional $125m payment if it reaches an unspecified commercial milestone.
Founded in 2012, Millipede is developing a medical device to treat patients suffering from severe mitral regurgitation – a condition that causes blood to flow the wrong way in the heart – who are not able to tolerate open-heart surgery.
The device, the Iris Transcatheter Annuloplasty Ring System, is inserted through a transcatheter procedure and can be administered either as a standalone therapy or in conjunction with other treatments.
Boston Scientific secured an option to wholly acquire the rest of Millipede’s shares when it made a $90m primary and secondary investment in the company in January 2018.
The deal also gave Millipede the right to compel Boston Scientific to acquire it following an in-human trial, and the company revealed that it recently completed a first-in-human clinical study for the technology.
Millipede was co-founded by venture capital firm and majority investor Santé Ventures together with Steven Bolling, professor of cardiac surgery at University of Michigan. It raised $6.2m from seven undisclosed backers in 2016 according to a regulatory filing.
