While large-scale consolidation has occurred in several major medical device markets, it has generally tended to serve different purposes in each industry segment. In orthopedics, a handful of large deals, most notably Stryker’s purchase of Howmedica and Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of DePuy, took a highly fragmented market (in terms of market share) and created a much more concentrated one, connecting commercial success to critical mass. In interventional cardiology, on the other hand, consolidation has tended to give companies wishing to build bigger franchises the technology and market footprint they needed—think of Boston Scientific’s acquisition of SciMed LifeSystems or Medtronic’s purchase of AVE.
No industry sector more clearly exhibits the sustained dynamics of consolidation than the cardiac rhythm management (CRM) market. But consolidation...