J&J Buys Minimally Invasive Surgical NeuWave Medical

Johnson & Johnson has announced its plans to purchase privately-held NeuWave Medical (Madison, WI) for an undisclosed sum. NeuWave makes minimally invasive soft-tissue microwave ablation technology for surgical applications including the removal of soft tissue growth.

Brian Buntz

NeuWave's technology can help reduce healthcare costs and offers a minimally invasive surgical alternative for many oncology applications, according to the group company chairman of J&J subsidiary Ethicon. It can be used to ablate tumors in the lungs, liver, kidneys, and bones.

Examples include treating primary and metastatic lesions in the lung, liver, and kidney. In May of last year, the company estimated the potential market for its technology to represent 11.6 million new patients annually.

NewWave's CEO Dan Sullivan expects the acquisition to help bolster his firm's product development efforts. In an interview with Xconomy, Sullivan said that he was also excited that the acquisition would help it launch its products internationally; the company had been focused primarily on the North American market.

The company's technology works by emitting microwave energy from the tip of an instrument to rapidly oscillate water molecules in a lesion, which in turn sufficiently heats the cells in the lesion to destroy them.

NeuWave was born out of a collaboration between physicians and microwave scientists at the University of Wisconsin. The company was founded by Fred Lee, MD and Daniel van der Weide, Ph.D., who helped develop its technology and licensed it from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

Last year, the company had attracted $25 million in C round funding led by Versant Ventures.

The closing of the deal is pending regulatory approval and requires compliance with the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

Last year, J&J and Google's life science division announced that the two companies had been working together to develop robotic surgical technology

J&J and the life-sciences arm of Google Inc. formed an independent surgical solutions company last year to produce innovative and cost-effective robotic-assisted systems to aid surgeons.

Brian Buntz is the editor-in-chief of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @brian_buntz.