The past few months have been eventful for Irvine-based medical device maker Micro Therapeutics Inc.
The company, which launched its Onyx system for treating blood vessel disorders in the brain this summer, just received a buyout offer from its majority shareholder.
Micro Therapeutics ranked No. 5 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing local public companies, up a notch from last year.
The company posted three-year sales growth of 336% to $43.5 million for the 12 months ended June 30. Through the first half of 2005, Micro’s sales were up 47% from a year earlier.
This likely will be Micro’s last year on our list. Plymouth, Minn.-based ev3 Inc., which already owns 70% of Micro, plans to buy the rest of the company for about $110 million in stock.
An independent committee reviewing the offer is expected to recommend that Micro’s directors approve a sale.
Ev3 just went public itself, raising $165 million in a June offering. Ev3 and Micro have another tie,Jim Corbett, ev3’s chief executive, lives in Orange County and is Micro’s chairman.
Corbett, in a statement after ev3 made its offer to buy the rest of Micro, said the deal could result in “significant cost savings as redundant public company and other general and administrative expenses are eliminated.”
Analysts have said in published reports that ev3 could save up to $1.5 million in yearly operating expenses by buying Micro.
Micro hasn’t posted a profit in its 12-year history, a fact that ev3 cited in federal filings around the time it went public. For the six months through June, Micro’s net loss narrowed to $2.2 million from $16.5 million in the year-ago period.
Thomas Gunderson and Timothy Nelson, analysts with US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, called the road to profitability “a long journey of small steps” for Micro.
Micro and ev3 make products to treat diseases related to vascular, or blood vessel, conditions.
Micro’s main product is the Onyx system to treat disorders of the brain’s blood vessel. In July, Micro’s shares shot up 43% in after-hours trading after the Food and Drug Administration approved its application to sell Onyx.
Onyx is a liquid embolic material that transforms into a solid polymer cast that seals defective arteries and veins, shutting off blood flow and reducing the risk of rupture. Onyx is delivered to a patient’s brain through tiny catheters.
Getting Onyx on the market has been a long time coming. Micro said that the system had been under development since 1995 and had been distributed around the world since 2002 by ev3. Even though Onyx is sold abroad, Micro recently closed its plant in Germany and moved production to its Irvine headquarters.
Ev3 makes products for three blood vessel types: cardiovascular, neurovascular and peripheral vascular diseases. Its devices use catheters to treat coronary artery problems, among other conditions.
Micro also got a small gain earlier this year, when it received $3.7 million for its share of C.R. Bard Inc.’s $60 million buy of Genyx Medical Inc., an Aliso Viejo company. Micro held a minority stake in Genyx, a venture-backed company that Micro split off in the 1990s.
THE NUMBERS
Employees: 290
Market value: $320 million
3-year sales growth: 336%
Annual sales through June 30: $43.5 million
Annual loss: $23.2 million
Company: medical device maker
