Abbott, St. Jude Medical to deal vascular assets to Terumo for $1B

Abbott (NYSE:ABT) and St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ), the subject of a pending, $25 billion acquisition by Abbott, agreed to deal some of their respective vascular assets to Japan’s Terumo Corp. (TYO:4543) for about $1.12 billion.

The sale involves St. Jude’s Angio-Seal and Femoseal vascular closure devices and Abbott’s Vado steerable sheath, the companies said today. Abbott said it will retain its overall vascular closure business, including the Perclose ProGlide, StarClose SE and Prostar XL products. The transaction is subject to a successful consummation of the Abbott-St. Jude merger, which is slated to close by the end of this year. European anti-trust regulators are slated to decide by Nov. 9 whether to clear the deal.

Abbott said it expects to “mitigate” any impact on its adjusted earnings per share from the asset sale to Terumo.

It’s been a rough couple of months for St. Jude, which is facing down an attack from notorious short-seller Muddy Waters and cyber research firm MedSec Holdings over alleged security problems with its cardiac rhythm management devices (yesterday, St. Jude said it would assemble a cybersecurity advisory panel to guide its development efforts). And last week, the company warned of the possibility that a battery issue could disable its high-voltage CRM implants, saying the problem is associated with 2 deaths among the nearly 400,000 patients implanted with affected devices.

Abbott is having troubles of its own with another pending buyout, the $6 billion acquisition of Alere (NYSE:ALR), after an attempt to mediate a dispute over its desire to spike that deal failed last month. The company is dialing in on its cardiovascular and diagnostics businesses, divesting its Abbott Medical Optics operation to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) for $4.3 billion last month.

STJ shares were up 2.1% to $79.29 apiece today in late-morning activity, with ABT shares rising 1.2% to $41.07 each.

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