Following a six-month antitrust fight, Edwards Lifesciences has been forced to walk away from its $945M attempt to buy fledgling valve developer JenaValve after a U.S. district court ruled in favor of the FTC’s decision to block the move.
- Edwards first announced the JenaValve deal in July 2024, aimed at bringing the company’s Trilogy TAVR system into its robust structural heart portfolio.
- The deal would’ve allowed Edwards to lock down the TAVR-for-aortic-regurgitation market, since the company already has a duopoly with Medtronic in TAVR for AS.
The FTC’s big issue didn’t just start Edwards acquiring JenaValve, rather it was the short timespan in which the structural heart giant went after another valve developer.
- Edwards almost simultaneously acquired JC Medical in a $116M upfront deal for its aortic regurgitation TAVR program in August 2024.
- To the FTC, this meant Edwards was trying to buy the category’s two most advanced TAVR for AR options.
That’s why the FTC sued in August 2025 under the pretense that the merger could reduce competition for AR treatments, diminish product quality, and increase prices, an argument which ultimately held up in court.
So what’s next for the top TAVR company in the U.S.? Edwards says it’s still all-in on treating aortic regurgitation with TAVR using its own SOJOURN transcatheter AR valve while enrolling patients in the JOURNEY pivotal trial that is testing the J-valve it acquired from JC Medical.
- In the meantime, the big medtech players like Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson are likely to bid over who gets JenaValve next.
The Takeaway
This court ruling is a reminder that you can’t buy up all of the best tech in a specific sector, at least not when it comes to structural heart medtech. It also keeps the door open for competition in the U.S. on the TAVR front, something that Edwards has only had to deal with from Medtronic.
