Irvine-based heart valve maker Edwards Lifesciences Corp. could use its $360 million in cash for buying other companies and doesn’t plan on becoming an acquisition itself, Chief Executive Michael Mussallem said at an investor conference.
The “first use” for the company’s cash will be acquiring technology or companies working on heart valves and related technologies, Mussallem told Bloomberg.
“We aggressively look at technologies all the time,” he said at an interview at the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Edwards is riding high on Sapien, a replacement heart valve that is sold in Europe and is in a major U.S. clinical trial.
Sapien is inserted into a patient’s heart via a catheter, eliminating the need for open heart surgery.
The valve and rival products are seen as the biggest advancement in medical devices in years and are expected to open up the market to patients who aren’t strong enough for major heart surgery.
Edwards expects to debut Sapien in the U.S. by late 2011 and is putting money into the launch.
The valve also has rekindled talk of Edwards being a possible acquisition target for bigger medical device makers.
Johnson & Johnson or Abbott Laboratories have been cited as possible suitors.
“There are not a lot of midsize medical technology companies,” Mussallem told Bloomberg. “When you think of consolidation, it becomes natural (for Edwards’ name to come up). There are a lot of larger companies that are consistently looking for growth.”
But being acquired “is not part of our strategy,” Mussallem said.
“As an independent company we’ve been able to execute at a high level,” he said.
Sapien came to Edwards by way of acquisition.
In 2003, Edwards paid $125 million for New Jersey startup Percutaneous Valve Technologies Inc.
The company’s key rival is Minnesota’s Medtronic Inc., which bought Irvine catheter valve startup CoreValve Inc. in 2009.
CoreValve’s device also is sold in Europe and is starting a U.S. trial.
Edwards’ gains from Sapien earned Mussallem the Business Journal’s businessperson of the year honor for 2010. For more, click here.
