A tweet from Mateo Marín-Cuartas, MD.

Cardiology Business

J&J to Buy Abiomed in $16.6B Deal

Johnson & Johnson has struck a deal to buy Impella heart pump manufacturer Abiomed for $16.6B, expanding its cardiovascular care portfolio. 

Impella heart pumps — small devices that are threaded through arteries into the heart to help it move blood through the body – are Abiomed’s main revenue source. Abiomed’s products are stocked in all major US cardiovascular cath labs and nearly all heart transplant centers. 

The Details – J&J will pay $380 for each Abiomed share (a 50% stock premium) and will also shell out another $35 per share if certain commercial and clinical goals are met. 

J&J’s Expanding Interventional Portfolio – Abiomed joins a small but mighty group of interventional companies in J&J’s portfolio, including arrhythmia treatment company Biosense Webster and stroke solution company Cerenovus. 

A Strategic Decision – The purchase marks J&J’s first interventional cardiology acquisition since Biosense Webster in 1996, and its biggest overall acquisition in six years. Some have pointed out that J&J plans to spin off its consumer health unit next year, and Abiomed’s heart pump will likely boost its medical device division. 

The Interventional Cardiology Landscape – J&J’s $16.6B Abiomed acquisition wraps up what has already been an active year in interventional cardiology M&A, following Cordis’ purchase of MedAlliance ($1.35B) and Boston Scientific’s Baylis Medical acquisition ($1.7B). 

The Takeaway

J&J’s Abiomed acquisition should make it the undisputed leader of the heart pump segment, while fortifying its interventional cardiology portfolio ahead of its spin-off. The acquisition and Abiomed’s high premium are also reminders of what appears to be a hot M&A climate in the interventional cardiology space.

HeartFlow FFRct’s Clinical Data Foundation

HeartFlow FFRct Analysis’ widespread payor support and adoption by 80% of the top 50 US heart hospitals is built on a deep foundation of peer-reviewed clinical research. See how HeartFlow FFRct has consistently proven to reduce unnecessary angiograms and the cost of care, making it a “game changer” for its users. 

Automating Echo AI

Check out this Imaging Wire Show featuring Us2.ai’s co-founders, James Hare and Carolyn Lam MBBS, PhD, detailing Us2.ai’s unique origins, impressive capabilities, and big goals to automate echocardiography reporting across the world.

The Wire

• Impella’s Right HF Premarket Approval: In other Abiomed news, the Impella RP Flex with SmartAssist has received FDA premarket approval for the treatment of acute right heart failure for up to 14 days. The circulatory support device is indicated for temporary right ventricular support in patients with acute right HF or decompensation following MI, LVAD implantation, or heart surgery. The FDA previously issued an emergency use authorization for an earlier version of the device in June 2020 to treat patients suffering from COVID-related HF. 

• Apixaban Beats Other DOACs: In the most comprehensive analysis to date, apixaban was found to be the best direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) for minimizing bleeding risks. Researchers analyzed data from over 527k people with AFib and found that ​​apixaban was associated with lower rates of gastrointestinal bleeding compared with dabigatran (hazard ratio: 0.81), edoxaban (HR: 0.77), or rivaroxaban (HR: 0.72). All DOACs had similar rates of stroke prevention and all-cause mortality. 

• Viz.ai & Us2.ai’s Echo Coordination: Viz.ai announced a partnership with Us2.ai that will combine Viz’s intelligent care coordination platform and image viewer with Us2.ai’s AI-driven echocardiography reporting solution, improving the speed the coordination of care for patients with suspected heart disease. The alliance continues Viz.ai’s expansion into cardiovascular care and beyond its neuro origins (joining solutions for cryptogenic stroke, aortic disease, and pulmonary embolism), while adding to Us2.ai’s growing list of platform partners (joining Aidoc and Blackford).

• IV Potassium & Magnesium for AFib. A new study out of Austria found that IV administration of magnesium and potassium in patients with nonpermanent AFib at the ER increased the probability that arrhythmia spontaneously converts back to normal. Among 2.5k episodes of nonpermanent AFib, those who received potassium and magnesium were nearly twice as likely to experience spontaneous conversion compared to normal treatment (19.2% vs. 10.4%). 

• Radiaction’s Device Compatible with Siemens Artis: Radiaction Medical has received expanded FDA clearance for its Radiation Shielding System, making the system compatible with the Siemens Artis family of fluoroscopy C-arm machines. The robotic system encapsulates the imaging beam from C-arm machines, protecting interventional cardiologists and other team members against scatter radiation during endovascular procedures. Radiaction received initial FDA clearance for the device in March 2022. 

• VBC Pocket Guide: Rock Health published “a pocket guide” to value-based care to help providers, payors, and life sciences orgs untangle the competing narratives around risk-based contracts. It’s short and sweet, and doesn’t get into cardiology, but it’s a solid blueprint for anyone looking to brush up on the space or figure out the first steps to their VBC approach.

• Dapagliflozin Benefits HF Patients with AFib: Does AFib status affect the clinical outcomes in heart failure patients receiving SGLT2i therapy? An analysis of heart rhythm data from 6k individuals in the DELIVER trial found that the SGLT2 inhibitor dapagliflozin was beneficial, irrespective of AFib type. As expected, the risk of CV death or worsening HF was worse for patients with AFib than those without. However, dapagliflozin consistently improved outcomes for both paroxysmal (hazard ratio: 0.75) and persistent (HR: 0.79) AFib. 

• Artrya’s European Approval: Australian cardiac AI startup Artrya secured European CE Mark approval for its Salix Coronary Anatomy solution, expanding the solution beyond Australia and New Zealand. Salix Coronary Anatomy identifies and assesses arterial plaque in CCTAs, allowing clinicians to improve coronary heart disease diagnoses and risk assessments.

• Unexpected Pig Heart Transplant Findings: ECGs of the first pig-to-human heart transplant revealed unexpected findings in the conduction system of the genetically modified pig heart. Two aspects of the data were surprising: the time it takes electricity to travel from the top to the bottom chamber and across the bottom chambers, and the time it takes the lower chambers to go through a full electrical cycle. Common ECG measures are typically shorter in pigs than in humans, but these ECG measures were unexpectedly long – even longer than what is typical for human hearts. 

• CASIS QIR-MR’s FDA: CArdiac Simulation & Imaging Software (CASIS) announced the FDA clearance of its QIR-MR post-processing solution, bringing the France-based cardiac AI startup closer to US commercialization. CASIS’ QIR-MR solution uses AI to analyze cardiac MRI exams, covering all CMRI sequences and analyzing over 100 physiological parameters to support diagnostic speed and accuracy. 

• CCTA Heart Attack Differentiation: New research out of the UK revealed that CCTA-based quantitative plaque analysis could help clinicians differentiate between patients with type 1 and type 2 myocardial infarction. Among 327 patients with type 1 MI, type 2 MI, and chest pain but no MI (n= 155, 36, 136), the presence of low-attenuation coronary plaque was an independent predictor of type 1 MI (OR: 3.44). Patients with type 1 MI had higher total (44% vs. 35%), noncalcified (39% vs. 34%), and low-attenuation (4.15% vs. 1.64%) plaque burdens than patients with type 2 MI.

Cardiovascular Structured Reporting Adoption Benefits

Check out this Change Healthcare report detailing the benefits of cardiovascular structured reporting, and how to drive structured reporting adoption in your own organization.

Stress Less with AI-Powered CCTA

Stress tests are today’s go-to method for detecting coronary artery disease, but should they be? Tune-in to this Cleerly webinar exploring how we can improve CAD detection with AI-enabled CCTA.