BioSig Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:BSGM) CEO Kenneth L Londoner said on Monday that Koninklijke Philips NV didn’t balk at BioTelemetry Inc’s (NASDAQ:BEAT) high sticker price as there is a premium on cardiac medical technology.
Philips NV agreed last week to buy US-based BioTelemetry for $2.8 billion to expand in wearable heart monitors as the Dutch company grows in the burgeoning at-home care market.
“Philips has stated they it would like to be a leader in cardiac electrophysiology, the minimally-invasive procedure that strives to cure irregular heartbeats or atrial fibrillation. Buying BEAT gets them into the cardiac monitoring business which remotely measures heart signals,” Londoner told Proactive.
READ: BioSig Technologies looking to unlock the future of bioelectronic medicine
“The price they paid was rich and signifies the premium value places upon cardiac medical technology,” he added.
Londoner knows the cardiac medical technology space like the back of his hand as he founded BioSig in 2009. Westport, Connecticut-based BioSig has already built an impressive scientific and business track record. The company is commercializing its first product, a biomedical signal processing platform called PURE EP, which is designed to improve signal fidelity and uncover the full range of electrocardiogram (ECG) and intracardiac signals.
The $4.6 billion electrophysiology market is growing at more than 10% annually and expected to exceed $8.5 billion by 2024, according to a 2018 report on ‘Opportunities in Global Medical Devices and Diagnostics’.
“There’s an acceleration of telehealth and we think that’s structural,” Philips NV CEO Frans van Houten told reporters. “That’s a fundamental push for cloud-based solutions.”
Having agreed to acquire the market leader in cardio wearables, Philips sees room for additional deals as the company races to build out its telehealth and diagnostics portfolio. This sentiment is echoed by the medical technology industry.
“Medical technology is always consolidating,” pointed out Londoner.
“In our space, small and micro-cap med tech that are pre-revenue have traded between $250 million to $860 million on takeouts. There has been constant activity in the space. We are trading at a discount to the lower end of the takeout range.”
Bright outlook
BioSig, a prominent player in the ECG and intra-cardiac signals market, sees bright growth prospects as it heads into 2021.
“BioSig just announced our first commercial revenues late in the fourth of 2020. BioSig expects a full year of commercial revenue in 2021, building each quarter of the year. We have not given specific guidance, only to say we expect a full year of revenues,” said Londoner.
Earlier in December, BioSig reported that St. David’s HealthCare of Austin, Texas, had purchased three of the company’s PURE EP Systems, marking the first commercial sale of the BioSig product.
“Growth should be brisk as cardiac electrophysiology is one of the highest reimbursements for elective surgical procedures and hospitals need this revenue in 2021 and beyond,” added Londoner.
“Cardiac ablation private insurance pays approximately $56,000 to the hospital per case, and Medicare pays around $24,000.”
BioSig’s PURE EP System is designed to improve signal fidelity and uncover the full range of electrocardiogram and intracardiac signals, elevating the standard of care in electrophysiology through enhanced signal acquisition, digital signal processing, and analysis.
The company noted that more than 410 patient procedures to date have been conducted with the PURE EP System across six different hospital sites in the US, with over 200 procedures performed at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive
