St. Jude Medical has forged a $3.4 billion deal to acquire cardiovascular device company Thoratec to diversify its portfolio of heart failure disease-management products.
The deal comes as St. Paul, Minn.-based St. Jude reports lagging sales in its cardiac rhythm-management business, its largest by revenue. The deal also builds on St. Jude's May 2014 acquisition of CardioMEMS, which makes a wireless technology placed in the pulmonary artery to measure cardiac performance.
St. Jude will pay $63.50 per share for Thoratec in the all-cash transaction. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Thoratec manufactures the HeartMate ventricular-assistance device for heart failure patients.
