The Wider View: Is Merit Medical bringing in ClariVein to ease its FOLO pain?

Merit Medical has bagged a second acquisition before the close of this current quarter, this time the target is Vascular Insights, a company specialising in catheter-based treatment for varicose veins and venous ulcers. The deal gives Merit entry into a new segment in peripheral interventions. While the market opportunity for Vascular Insight’s ClariVein technology is certainly attractive, could Merit’s latest purchase decision have arisen partly from a sense of FOLO, fear of losing out, in light of two of its rivals, Boston Scientific and BTG, about to join forces?

 

What’s happened

Merit Medical announced Monday that it has acquired Vascular Insights, which sells the ClariVein specialty infusion and occlusion system for treating superficial venous disease. The system is FDA-cleared and CE marked; it is sold as the ClariVein IC in the US and as ClariVein OC in Europe. Merit paid $40 million upfront, and has agreed to pay up to $20 million for achievement of sales-related milestones.

 

The wider view

Commenting on the rationale for the purchase, Merit’s CEO Frank Lampropoulos stated that the company has had their eye on the ClariVein platform for some time and added how the technology complements the firm’s existing peripheral intervention sales platform.

The fact that ClariVein addresses a $700 million global market also made it a very attractive proposition.

Worth noting is that with the addition of ClariVein, this closes a gap in Merit’s portfolio and further aligns its offerings with one of its notable rivals, Boston Scientific, once the latter finalises its acquisition of BTG, also another competitor of Merit’s. Competition from Boston has mainly been in products for cardiac and peripheral intervention, while with BTG, the rivalry was mainly in interventional oncology (embolisation bead products and microspheres). BTG also had a vascular business, which included its Varithena varicose vein treatment. BTG had a slow start with Varithena initially but since the product - a nonsurgical, minimally invasive injectable foam treatment - got dedicated reimbursement codes, sales have accelerated.   

With BTG entering the folds of Boston Scientific, the combined entity would be a bigger force for Merit to reckon with, and having ClariVein on board can only help Merit stand its ground.

Uptake of ClariVein looks to be robust. The technology has been used in more than 120 000 cases to treat superficial venous disease, particularly below the knee and venous leg ulcers, according to Merit. The system has a specialty infusion catheter with a rotating wire tip designed to disperse the therapeutic agents to the targeted treatment area in a controlled, 360-degree manner.

Merit said it will leverage its global footprint to expand sales of ClariVein in previously underserved areas.