As one of the largest and oldest medical device companies in the world, Medtronic has a foot in almost every clinical area.
The device maker with a market valuation of nearly $100 billion sells pacemakers, spinal cord stimulators, stents, monitors. Name a device, and they probably make it. The behemoth is ubiquitous in health care, but its size can make innovation sluggish. Medtronic has tried to become more streamlined in recent years — the company announced plans last year to spin off its patient monitoring and respiratory businesses, which Reuters recently reported, citing unnamed sources, may go to the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.
Still, the device giant is immersed in many different specialties, including diabetes and high blood pressure, where the company has experienced some setbacks. Medtronic has sold old-school insulin pumps since the 1980s and therefore developed robust dosing algorithms, but has never successfully built a tubeless pump. The company plans to buy Korean patch pump maker EOFlow, but EOFlow is enmeshed in a patent battle with Insulet. A federal judge blocked EOFlow from selling its wearable patch pumps earlier this month.