Boston Scientific, Marlborough, Mass., has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Minneapolis-based Preventice Solutions Inc., a privately-held company which offers a full portfolio of mobile cardiac health solutions and services, ranging from ambulatory cardiac monitors—including short and long-term Holter monitors—to cardiac event monitors and mobile cardiac telemetry. The transaction consists of an upfront cash payment of $925 million, and up to an additional $300 million in a potential commercial milestone payment. Boston Scientific has been an investor in Preventice since 2015 and currently holds an equity stake of approximately 22%.

The Preventice product portfolio includes the BodyGuardian family of remote, wearable cardiac monitors for adult and pediatric patients. The monitors use a fully integrated, cloud-based platform supported by an independent diagnostic testing facility, where clinical technicians and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms provide insights that may lead to improved clinical diagnoses and outcomes. Preventice’s integration of AI and human expertise is designed to enhance physician efficiency and experience.

“This acquisition will provide Boston Scientific with a foothold in the high-growth ambulatory electrocardiography space, which strongly complements our recent entrance into the implantable cardiac monitor market and will serve as an important component of our category leadership strategy in cardiac diagnostics and services—a nearly $2B market anticipated to grow double digits annually,” says Scott Olson, senior vice president and president, Rhythm Management, Boston Scientific. “We are confident that by adding the broad technology portfolio and expertise of Preventice, our combined teams can continue to deliver rapid growth in these highly attractive markets while also establishing an important adjacency to our core cardiac rhythm management and electrophysiology businesses.”

The newest remote monitoring system within the Preventice BodyGuardian family, the BodyGuardian MINI PLUS, has multiple electrode options intended to enhance rhythm detection, is waterproof, repositionable, and can be used in all modalities of short- and long-term monitoring, as determined necessary by physicians. These remote monitoring systems are combined with BeatLogic deep learning algorithms—a type of AI—that detect, classify, and interpret variations in heart rhythm data with high beat detection sensitivity and positive predictive value.

“We have been humbled to provide thousands of physician practices with services based on near real-time clinical data to enable the diagnosis and management of more than 1 million cardiac patients, without needing to interrupt their daily activities,” says Jon Otterstatter, chief executive officer of Preventice Solutions. “Boston Scientific has been a key investor in Preventice for more than five years and we believe the company has the commercial reach, diagnostics expertise, and operational infrastructure to bring these advanced monitoring technologies to more patients worldwide.”

The acquisition is projected to close by mid-2021, subject to customary closing conditions. 

Founded in 2007 as Preventice, Preventice Solutions is based in Minneapolis with offices in Houston and Rochester, Minn.