San Diego’s Volcano Paying $36M+ for Menlo Park’s Crux Biomed

Doctors Surgery (iStockphoto muratkoc, used with permission)

San Diego vascular device maker Volcano Corp. (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VOLC]]) today disclosed an agreement to pay at least $36 million for Menlo Park, CA-based Crux Biomedical. The Crux deal comes just a few weeks after Volcano said it was acquiring Israeli imaging software developer Sync-Rx for $17.3 million.

Volcano specializes in devices that improve the diagnosis and treatment of coronary and peripheral vascular disease. The company says privately held Crux won clearance in the U.S. earlier this year and in Europe last year for its innovative inferior vena cava (IVC) filter, used to treat pulmonary embolisms—a type of blockage typically caused by a blood clot that has broken free. Volcano says such embolisms affect 600,000 U.S. patients every year, with an estimated 200,000 deaths annually.

In its statement today, Volcano describes IVC filters as an extra tool for reducing the risk among cardiovascular patients who are not suitable for anticoagulant drugs. Crux, founded in 2004, designed its IVC filter so the device can be retrieved.

The Crux acquisition would add a new tool to Volcano’s portfolio. Volcano’s intravascular imaging technology uses catheters and guide wires inserted inside a blood vessel to help doctors detect and treat blockages.

Under terms of the agreement, Volcano agreed to pay $36 million in cash at the closing, which is expected to take place within the next week. Volcano said it will pay Crux an additional $3 million milestone payment if the FDA clears another Crux-designed retrieval device by June 30. Volcano also agreed to pay as much as $3.1 million in Crux transaction expenses. What’s more, Volcano agreed to make additional cash payments for up to four years, based on sales of Crux products following their commercial launch.

Volcano expects to initiate commercial sales of Crux products at the end of 2013 once full-scale manufacturing is implemented at its Rancho Cordova, CA, plant.

The company said on Nov. 23 that Sync-Rx’s technology would help clinical decision-making by providing angiography and intra-body image enhancement, measurements, and non-invasive imaging. Volcano plans to integrate the visualization technology with its other tools.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.