Vascular Solutions has announced that it has acquired the Venture wire control catheter, a deflectable-tip catheter used to provide guidewire directional control in challenging coronary and peripheral interventional procedures, from St Jude Medical.
The Venture catheter’s deflectable atraumatic distal tip can be angled up to 90 degrees, providing physicians with control and precision while navigating complex turns in the vessel and lending back-up support when crossing tight lesions. The Venture catheter is currently sold in USA and international markets in three versions—over-the-wire, rapid-exchange and coronary sinus—all of which are 6 French-compatible and directionally control a standard 0.014-inch guidewire during difficult interventions.
Vascular Solutions has acquired all of the remaining finished goods inventory of the Venture catheter for immediate transition of existing sales, and has acquired the manufacturing equipment to begin the process of restarting and qualifying production in Vascular Solutions’ existing manufacturing facility. Vascular Solutions expects to complete the manufacturing qualification during the second quarter of 2013, at which time it plans to re-launch the device on a worldwide basis.
The total purchase price is US$3 million, consisting of an up-front payment of US$2.25 million and an additional payment of US$750,000 upon successful qualification of the transitioned manufacturing processes.
“We are pleased that we were able to work successfully with St Jude Medical to keep this important clinical tool on the market and available to the physicians who use the Venture catheter infrequently, but in some of their most challenging procedures,” said Howard Root, CEO of Vascular Solutions. “While the Venture catheter is an established product, the remaining finished goods inventory being transferred to us is extremely limited, which will only allow very limited sales until we have established manufacturing in-house and can perform a complete commercial re-launch in 2013.”
