Dive Brief:

• Philips has struck a deal to buy Intact Vascular for $275 million to add the first FDA-approved vascular implant for below-the-knee (BTK) interventions to its portfolio.

• The Dutch conglomerate said the Tack Endovascular System, which is also approved for use above the knee (ATK), will slot into a peripheral vascular portfolio underpinned by its interventional imaging platform.

•  As a private company, Intact Vascular has never published sales figures for Tack. On top of $275 million upfront, Philips committed to deferred payments of $85 million to gain the right to sell Tack alongside its intravascular ultrasound catheters, peripheral atherectomy devices and drug-coated balloons.  

Dive Insight:

The takeover is the first acquisition disclosed by Philips in more than one year. Asked about the lack of recent M&A activity on a conference call with analysts in June, Philips CEO Frans van Houten said "the main premise of the Philips value creation story is on organic growth," adding that the company is "not dependent on M&A." Van Houten said Philips would only act when it saw a "great M&A opportunity."

Intact Vascular won FDA approval ATK on the strength of a clinical trial that found 86.5% of patients were free from reintervention 12 months after undergoing balloon angioplasty. Later, Intact Vascular won approval for Tack BTK after running a clinical trial that found 82% of patients did not require additional procedures in the six months after treatment. The benefits persisted out to one year. 

Intact Vascular, working on a design from endovascular surgeon Peter Schneider, has spent almost a decade trying to address the shortcomings of stents, culminating in a series of events over the past two years that have validated its approach.

The force applied to blood vessels during balloon angioplasty procedures can cause tears, also known as dissections. Surgeons use stents to prevent the tears from causing problems including thrombosis and occlusion. Stents are associated with high rates of procedural success but studies suggest more than 30% of patients require target lesion revascularization within 12 months. Amputation rates for drug-eluting stents, which outperform their bare-metal equivalents, run as high as 14%.

Tack consists of four self-expanding implants and an associated catheter system to deliver them into the artery. Whether working above or below the knee, the physician aligns the implant with the tear and retracts the sheath to deploy the device. The implant self-expands to fit the space, pressing the torn tissue against the wall of the vessel.