As part of a move to extend its reach in patient monitoring, Franklin Lakes-headquartered medtech Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) plans to acquire Edwards Lifesciences’ smart connected care business.

BD announced the $4.2 billion all-cash deal June 3. Under the transaction, it will take over the critical care unit. The segment develops and sells advanced blood and heart monitoring systems used in surgical and intensive care settings.

Based in Irvine, Calif., the unit has devices placed in more than 10,000 hospitals. In 2023, it brought in over $900 million in revenue.

After the deal closes, the group’s 4,500 employees will remain in their headquarters. It will operate as a separate unit within BD’s medical segment, led by Katie Szyman. BD said Szyman has served as corporate vice president of critical care since 2015.

BD plans to fund the transaction with about $1 billion of cash and $3.2 billion of new debt. Closing is expected by the end of 2024.

Immediate impact

BD said it believes the acquisition will immediately start adding to the company’s bottom line. It pegged the division’s growth between 6% and 7% per year, with about 80% of revenue from recurring equipment sales.

BD Chairman, CEO and President Tom Polen commented, “Critical care expands BD’s portfolio of smart connected care solutions with its growing set of leading monitoring technologies, advanced AI-enabled clinical decision tools and robust innovation pipeline that complement BD’s existing technologies serving operating rooms and intensive care units.”

“We believe the combination unlocks multiple new avenues for growth and value creation through BD’s broad global footprint, increased penetration across new and existing hospital customers, new innovation opportunities across data sets and platforms, and application of the BD Excellence operating system,” Polen said.

“Critical care is well aligned to BD’s core innovation and business strategies, is a strong cultural fit and we look forward to welcoming Katie and Critical Care’s talented team to BD,” he added.

In a statement, Edwards Lifesciences said it is no longer pursuing a previously announced spinoff of critical care. The company added that the sale to BD would expand opportunities for its heart devices as well as to invest in new technologies.

Edwards CEO Bernard Zovighian said, “Edwards’ underlying rationale for separating critical care remains the same: we are laser focused on pursuing a strategy centered on structural heart disease. Our goal is to serve large unmet patient needs with our differentiated innovations while extending our global leadership, delivering sustainable growth and increasing shareholder value.”

“Critical care has made significant contributions to our company and has a long history of pioneering innovation. We believe this transaction will strengthen Edwards, critical care and BD, paving the way for both companies to deliver even greater value to patients,” he stated.

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