Shockwave Medical (SWAV): $326.34
Deal Size: $13.1 B
After a relatively quiet March, deal activity picked up significantly last week with each new deal announced turning out to be larger than the last one and finally culminating in Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) acquisition of Shockwave Medical (SWAV). The premium paid (30 day average) for this $13.1 billion all cash deal was just 19.79% but this premium was impacted by the fact that rumors of a deal surfaced on March 26 and the deal was actually confirmed about a week later.
When I was visiting my parents last year, my mom was complaining about chest pains. A cardiologist told us that she had a severely calcified valve in her heart that needed to be replaced. Leaving the valve untreated would at some point result in complete blockage of blood flow and heart failure.
I extended my stay and instead of open heart surgery she underwent a minimally invasive procedure called transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) to replace the valve. Much to our relief, she recovered fully after the procedure. When I read about Shockwave’s business, I was reminded of the TAVR procedure because Shockwave Medical has developed products that use sonic pressure waves to disrupt calcified plaque in arteries both for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases as well as occlusive peripheral arterial disease.