St. Jude Medical, Inc. completed its acquisition of LightLab Imaging, Inc. for approximately 90 million dollars in cash. LightLab is involved in the development of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), a high-resolution diagnostic coronary imaging technology. The acquisition of OCT technology accelerates the expansion of St. Jude Medical's cardiovascular growth platform by providing the company with a comprehensive product offering that will allow the company to compete in, and potentially expand, the intravascular imaging market. The IVUS market is estimated to be 500 million dollars for 2010 and to grow 10 to 15 percent annually. During the second half of 2010, St. Jude Medical expects the OCT platform to contribute an additional 20 million dollars in revenue to its cardiovascular business. The OCT market is expected to grow at a double-digit compounded annual rate over the next five years and is expected to capture IVUS market share.
The combination of both OCT and the complementary Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR) technology will provide physicians with comprehensive lesion assessment information; FFR provides physiological data to help physicians determine which lesions to treat, and OCT provides anatomical images which can help guide stent selection and deployment as well as provide post-stenting information to help ensure the procedure went smoothly.
