Report: M&A fueling personnel growth at large medtech firms

The raging mergers & acquisitions market in medtech is responsible for expanding personnel bases at large medical device companies, according to a report from EP Vantage.

The market analysis firm analyzed growth across the medtech sector and reported that none of the top 15 medtech companies, chosen by market capitalization, had seen a net decrease in personnel over the last year.

Mergers & acquisitions were responsible for most of the growth, with partial responsibility due to an upturn in the U.S. economy, EP Vantage said.

Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) topped the charts for both personnel size and growth with 92,000 employees, after picking up 39,500 from Covidien in its $50 billion acquisition that closed this year. Excluding the Covidien adoptees, the number of Medtronic employees grew 7% from 2013 to 2014, adding another 3,500 to the company.

Smith & Nephew (NYSE:SNN) also saw employee numbers boom due to its $1.5 billion acquisition of AnthroCare, adding 1,800 jobs and increasing its workforce 22% with the buy.

Abbott (NYSE:ABT) grew staff by 12% due to acquisitions, but not in the medtech sphere, EP Vantage reported. The analysts suggested that Abbott’s purchase of pharma firms CFR and Veropharm were at the heart for their burgeoning numbers.

Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) grew 4%, which the firm suggested was partly due to its acquisition of Bayer’s interventional business. This change was significant for the company, which has seen shrinking numbers in personnel between 2009 and 2014.

The trend is set to continue, EP Vantage said, with Zimmer‘s (NYSE:ZBH) purchase of Biomet  and Becton Dickinson & Co.‘s (NYSE:BDX) purchase of CareFusion completed. Biomet had over 4,000 staff on hand, and CareFusion had over 16,000, which would put Zimmer at 14,000 staff and BD just below 47,000.

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) showed no growth from 2013, but is positioned to pick up roughly 1,000 employees with its tentative $3.4 billion acquisition of Thoratec (NSDQ:THOR), EP Vantage said.

“After slow and steady growth in medtech employment in 2013, 2014 was more extreme, with big mergers and divestments leading to greater gains and losses. With industry consolidation, along with the likely continuing popularity of spinouts, the coming year could bring more of the same,” report authors concluded.

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