Boston Scientific Corporation recently announced an agreement to purchase Swiss medical device maker Symetis SA for $435 million in up-front cash.  The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017.

Symetis describes itself as the leading European developer of innovative, minimally invasive heart valve replacement devices. Its transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) products, ACURATE TA™ and ACURATE neo™, and their delivery systems, are currently marketed and sold in Europe.

The agreement to acquire Symetis follows Boston Scientific’s acquisition of certain Neovasc, Inc. manufacturing assets, which closed in December 2016.  Regarding its acquisition of Symetis, Ian Meredith, M.D., executive vice president and global chief medical officer of Boston Scientific says:

The steps we are taking reflect our commitment to being a leader in TAVI and structural heart technologies now and over the long-term, as we broaden our portfolio and pipeline to address the needs of our global health care providers and their patients.  The ACURATE family of valve products is strongly complementary to our cornerstone Lotus™ valve platform, and this compelling combination of technologies will allow us to provide interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons with multiple TAVI offerings for varying patient pathologies and anatomy.

The acquisition also follows Boston Scientific’s recent voluntary recall of its Lotus heart valve devices in February 2017.  As reported by Reuters, Needham & Co analyst Mike Matson said in a client note that “[t]his [acquisition] is an offensive rather than a defensive move and not simply a ‘stop-gap’ to address the Lotus recall, shortcomings with Lotus, or IP issues.”