Stryker Pays A 60% Premium For Inari Medical

One of the major price drivers in health care is cartelization.  The antitrust acts are deader than Adam's cat.  Large corporations get ever larger and eventually get the dominance necessary to set prices at will:

https://www.medtechdive.com/news/stryker-inari-medical-acquisition/736615/

Stryker to buy Inari Medical for nearly $5B
Stryker made several small deals last year but lacked a larger acquisition like its nearly $5 billion proposal for Inari Medical.

Dive Brief:

Stryker has agreed to acquire Inari Medical for approximately $4.9 billion, the company announced late Monday. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter.

Under the deal, Stryker would acquire all of Inari’s shares for $80 per share in cash, a premium of more than $30 over Friday’s closing price. Inari’s stock price closed at $65 Monday after surging by more than 30% in day trading.

Inari would continue a busy year of dealmaking for Stryker in 2024, which included acquisitions of the artificial intelligence company Care.ai, the back pain device maker Vertos Medical and Nico Corporation, which makes devices to remove brain tumors and clots. Stryker did not disclose financial terms for the three deals.

Dive Insight:

Stryker’s proposed acquisition of Inari kicks off medtech M&A in 2025 after a flurry of deals last year.

Inari, based in Irvine, California, makes a variety of devices including catheter-based mechanical thrombectomy systems to treat vascular disease. Stryker, which has a larger orthopedics business, said in the deal announcement that Inari’s product portfolio complements its neurovascular business.

Inari is expected to generate $603 million of revenue in 2024, compared with $494 million in 2023 and $383 million in 2022, according to presentation materials from Stryker. The company brought in $51 million in 2019, the earliest data included in Stryker’s presentation.

Stryker CEO Kevin Lobo said in a statement that Inari’s “innovations elevate the standard of care for venous thromboembolism patients and will accelerate Stryker’s impact in endovascular procedures.”

While the Inari purchase continues an active run of acquisitions for Stryker, the nearly $5 billion price tag departs from the company’s recent history of executing smaller, tuck-in deals.

Lobo told investors in July 2024 that the company was planning a “very active deal pipeline.” However, the executive noted the company tends to focus on smaller acquisitions of companies with fast-growing assets.

Stryker said in the announcement that more details on the deal and its impact on revenue, operating margins and earnings per share would be discussed on its upcoming Jan. 28 earnings call.