I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more written about Ardian since their sale to Medtronic last month. It may be the largest venture-backed medical device exit to-date. Ardian’s $800M-plus-milestone-payments may end up being larger than Medtronic’s purchase of CoreValve for $700M-plus-milestone-payments in 2009. Even more unusual was Ardian’s relatively early-stage. At the time of sale, CoreValve had implanted devices in 2,600 patients at 125 centers in 25 countries. Ardian exited much earlier, with about 150 patients treated.
Overnight sensations don’t happen overnight. While Ardian seemed to come out of nowhere in 2009 and exited large in 2010, the truth is that the company had been hard at work for almost 10 years. Ardian achieved more than 10X return on $66M invested – at least $732M of value created, before milestones. While the end of the story is still unwritten, Ardian’s first few chapters form a great case study for medical device entrepreneurs and investors.
Jay Caplan on Medical Devices 