How Is the Medtronic's M&A Strategy Involving in the Medical Device World?

In recent years, the med-tech industry has witnessed quite a lot of biopharma mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities. And it also transformed the medical device industry. Some of the most talked-about M&A storylines included Medtronic buying Covidien, Zimmer buying Biomet, and Cardinal Health buying Cordis unit of Johnson & Johnson—all billion dollars in each deal.

Essilor International SA's acquisition of Transitions Optical for $1.73 billion was one of the largest deals announced in 2013, but in January 2015, Medtronic now-finalized $50 billion takeover of Covidien is the life science industry's second largest inversion deal, following the Allergan/Actavis ($ACT) pharma tie-up.

Medtronic’s Ten M&A Deals

As one of the global medical device industry giants, Medtronic has completed ten acquisitions since July 2014, with business areas involving in diabetes treatment, blood clots, noninvasive cardiac mapping, hearing implant and other fields.

Since 2015, Medtronic triumphs on the road of investment and merger & acquisition. Following completion of the Visualase, Reverse Medical, SapiensSteering Brain Stimulation, NGC Medical, and Sapheon business in 2014, Medtronic announced $ 42.9 billion acquisition of Covidien health care in January 2015, which not only becomes the biggest global medical device acquisition cases, but also let it hop over Johnson to become the world's largest medical device company.

After that, Medtronic has acquired Aptus Endosystems, CardioInsight Technologies, Sophono, Diabeter, and Advanced Uro-Solution, which allows the company to gradually expand the business territory to achieve the rapid expansion of the company's revenue.

Started with pacemaker business, Medtronic is no longer confined to the heart business areas now. There are currently four business lines in Medtronic, namely, cardiovascular services, diabetes services, rehabilitation therapy business, Covidien business. According to its annual report, Medtronic’s revenues in 2015 has reached $ 20.261 billion, up 6 percent year-over-year; with non-GAAP $ 4.744 billion and $ 4.28 per share, respectively rose by 16% and 6%.

So who will be Medtronic’s next goal along with such frequent M&A?

Actually, competition between global medical device industry becomes more and more fierce. Facing competitors like Johnson & Johnson, GE, Philips, and Siemens, Medtronic choose to conterminously own dozens of medical device companies through recent mergers and acquisitions. As mid-year approaches, mergers and acquisition activity in 2015 continues at a hefty pace. So let’s stay tuned to see what in the next half year of 2015 has in store.