Galway-based technology firm Apica Cardiovascular has been sold for $75 million.
The medical device company was sold to Thoratec a world leader in mechanical circulatory support therapies for failing hearts.
The deal involves an upfront cash payment of $35 million and potential future clinical and sales milestones of up to $40 million.
The Apica team will be retained in full at the Innovation Centre at NUI Galway and it is likely that further development and investment in the product will increase employment there over time.
In 2010, Seroba Kernel Life Sciences led a Series A financing of the company, which was also supported by Enterprise Ireland, and Apica moved to the Innovation Centre at Galway NUI where it developed its product range
Seroba Kernel partner Daniel O’Mahony said the sale reinforces Galway’s position as a world-class hub for medtech development.
“It validates our model of taking leading-edge technologies from the USA, where there is a shortage of finance, and implanting them in Ireland whilst retaining links to the US innovators and clinicians,” he added.
Apica was founded in 2009 to design and develop innovative medical devices for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases which are reaching epidemic proportions in the US and are a growing problem in Europe and Japan as well.
The company won in the Life Sciences Innovation category in The Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards last year.
