Medtronic buys Italian hospital services company

Medtronic made its second deal this week, announcing a $350 million acquisition of an Italian operator of cardiovascular suites, operating rooms and intensive-care units.

The deal is aligned with the Minneapolis-based medical-device manufacturer's strategy of acquiring companies that fit into three clinical categories—cardiovascular, neuro-musculoskeletal and diabetes—or help the company better partner with hospitals.

Medtronic previously held a 30% stake in privately held NGC Medical, which currently works with about 30 hospitals in Italy and is expanding to other regions of Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa. The company, based in Novedrate, Italy, will serve as the managed-services arm of Medtronic's hospital solutions business. Medtronic already manages cath labs for roughly 15 hospital systems in Europe.

“Medtronic is intent on finding new ways to partner with physicians, hospital systems, patients, payers and governments around the world to meet their cost and access challenges and to deliver high quality healthcare,” Rob ten Hoedt, executive vice president and president of Medtronic's Europe, Middle East, Africa and Canada region, said in a statement.

While payment dynamics in the U.S. market are different than in Europe and other developed countries, Medtronic is also investing in tools and technologies that allow it to partner directly with U.S. hospitals. Last year Medtronic acquired Cardiocom, a Chanhassen, Minn.-based heart failure management patient-monitoring system that counts the Veterans Affairs Department as a client. Another company Medtronic acquired this year makes antibacterial envelopes for implants that help reduce surgical site infections.

“Given the market's shift to value-based healthcare, we are expanding our medical-device product offerings to include broader healthcare services and solutions that provide meaningful clinical outcomes and economic value for hospitals, physicians, patients and payers,” Medtronic said in a securities filing.

But this isn't the only type of deal that Medtronic is pursuing. The company has announced four deals this year, including a $42.9 billion bid to buy Irish surgical supplier Covidien. Earlier this week, it said it would spend $200 million in cash to acquire Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation, a Dutch developer of deep-brain stimulation technologies.

Follow Jaimy Lee on Twitter: @MHjlee