In a big year that started off with the completion of its megamerger with Covidien, Medtronic continued its bold march into the future. The Ireland-based device maker doubled-down on its pivot to a services model with moves like its April purchase of Diabeter, a Netherlands-based integrated care network that manages diabetes patients, and a partnership with IBM to leverage insights from the Watson Health Cloud to improve diabetes care. Along the same vein, the company in June launched a pilot program to bring the managed services model it pioneered in cath labs to the operating room.

This year also saw Medtronic advance technologies including the Micra TPS leadless pacemaker—the world’s smallest—which received the CE Mark in April, and the CoreValve Evolut R transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) system, the first and only TAVR device that can be redeployed and repositioned, which was cleared by FDA in June.

The company didn’t slow the pace of its acquisitions either, snapping up nine companies in the first nine months of the year, including RF Surgical Systems, maker of a technology to ensure surgical sponges aren’t left inside patients; Aptus Endosystems, which has two FDA-cleared fastening devices for securing endografts; and Lazarus Effect, maker of a blood-clot-removal device.

[Image courtesy of MEDTRONIC]