Translumina acquires Blue Medical Devices

Translumina, a global leader in Interventional Cardiovascular medical devices with manufacturing presence in Germany and India, today announced the acquisition of Blue Medical Devices, a Wellinq group company, based out of Helmond, Netherlands. The company incorporated in 2013 produces an innovative basket of balloon catheters including Drug Coated Balloons (DCB) and other speciality balloons for complex coronary interventions.

With great excitement, Wellinq’s CEO, Sander Hartman, stated: “Becoming part of Translumina, which is an emerging front runner in building a great product- and technology portfolio in coronary and structural heart interventions across the world, marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Blue Medical. We are convinced that Blue Medical’s next-generation Drug Coated Balloon catheters have a tremendous market opportunity with the global sales and marketing network of Wellinq’s long term partner Translumina.”

Notably, Blue Medical DCB catheters, Protégé NC and Protégé SC, significantly overcome the limitations of current DCB technologies and offers high efficacy and safety. The EU-MDR approved DCB catheters have a unique offering of a non-compliant and a semi compliant version. The technology involves a patented drug application technology that prevents any drug loss during the advancement of the device to the lesion resulting in high concentration of the drug at the targeted site.

“This acquisition is of strategic importance as it complements our next generation Drug Eluting Stents portfolio to offer a complete solution for all coronary interventions. Drug Coated Balloons are gaining huge significance in treating certain complex lesion subsets and I am confident that this unique technology will provide new treatment possibilities for physicians and patients worldwide,” said Gurmit Singh Chugh who along with Punita Sharma founded Translumina in 2010.

Drug Eluting Balloons are now being considered a treatment of choice for in-stent restenosis, smaller vessels, bifurcations and multivessel disease. The current estimates project DCB market to be almost 30% of the global DES market in the next 5 years.

“I am excited to lead Translumina in this new wave of creating global leadership with path breaking technologies. Our German lineage now makes further inroads in Europe with this move to Netherlands, enabling us to offer a broad range of therapy solutions and disruptive innovations that address the unmet patient needs,” said Indranil Mukherjee, Group CEO, Global Business.

The acquisition shall also enable Translumina to use the patented Drug application technology of Blue Medical in other product lines in peripheral and neurovascular interventions complimenting its leadership in unique and innovative dug coating recipes.

“I am overwhelmed with the new realm of opportunities lying ahead for us with this unique DCB technology,” commented Paritosh Arora, MD, India.

Arjun Oberoi, Managing Director, Everstone Capital said, “The acquisition of Blue Medical greatly augments our global intervention cardiology portfolio. We are excited to leverage Translumina’s global distribution and manufacturing infrastructure to help scale Blue Medical’s highly innovative new drug-eluting balloon (Protégé) that received EU MDR certification earlier this year.”
MB Bureau