Medical device maker Stryker Corp. said in a securities filing Wednesday that it is not in talks to buy Boston Scientific Corp., two days after a media report said Stryker had made a takeover approach to acquire its medical-technology peer.
The market greeted Stryker's filing warmly, sending the Michigan-based company's shares up 7 percent in premarket trading after the stock fell 9 percent in the last two days. Shares finished up 2.5 percent on the day, to $166.60.
Boston Scientific saw the opposite effect. The Massachusetts med-tech company, which employs more than 7,000 people in Minnesota, saw its shares drop 6.2 percent on Stryker's denial Wednesday to $31.73 after rising in the two days prior.
The health care industry has seen rapid corporate consolidation in recent years, including a handful of larger deals in the medical device sector. Last year Abbott Laboratories acquired longtime Minnesota heart device maker St. Jude Medical for roughly $25 billion. In 2015, Minnesota's Medtronic acquired medical supplier Covidien in a $50 billion transaction that relocated the combined company's legal address to Ireland.
Both Stryker and Boston Scientific were mum earlier in the week after the Wall Street Journal first reported that Stryker had made what it called a "takeover approach" to Boston Scientific.
"Stryker is not in discussions with Boston Scientific Corporation regarding a potential acquisition," Stryker said Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
"The filing from Stryker states that the company is not in discussions with Boston Scientific. It does not deny that prior discussions took place," said Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at Roosevelt Investment Group. However, "putting together a deal for Boston Scientific that creates value for Stryker shareholders would be a challenging high-wire act."
Boston Scientific designs and makes heart and vascular devices and men's urology treatments at plants in Arden Hills, Maple Grove and Minnetonka. The company is headquartered in Massachusetts.
The company has said it expects to generate up to $9.9 billion in revenue this year, up 7 percent on an organic basis. It also aims to resolve two material liabilities in the next year, paying hundreds of millions of dollars to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits from women implanted with mesh pelvic devices, and paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service to settle disputes over back taxes.
