The acquisition of Medina Medical is the ninth company purchase or major investment that Medtronic has announced since its $48 billion merger with Covidien.

Chris Newmarker

Medtronic said Monday that it will spend $150 million in cash to purchase Menlo Park, CA-based Medina Medical, which has been commercializing cutting edge treatments for vascular abnormalities of the brain including cerebral aneurysms.  

Medtronic had already bought an ownership stake in the company.

This is Medtronic's ninth company purchase or major investment since the January closing of its massive $48 billion acquisition of Covidien, which has it rivaling Johnson & Johnson as the largest medical device company in the world.

Medtronic has been pretty active, too, when it comes to snapping up new cardiovascular technologies. For example, Medtronic announced in August that it will spend $458 million to acquire privately held Twelve Inc. (Redwood, CA) and its  transcatheter mitral valve replacement technology.

More innovation appears to be making the cardiovascular space a successful area for the medical device industry, Elizabeth Cairns, a medtech reporter at EP Vantage (London), recently told Qmed.

Medina Medical's major technology is the Medina embolization device, a 3-D self-expandable mesh that provides a scaffold across the neck of an aneurysm neck. It is able to conform to the shape of the aneurysm, reducing blood flow in the process.

"Medina Medical's breakthrough technology makes it a natural fit with our neurovascular portfolio, further strengthening our hemorrhagic stroke portfolio," Brett Wall, president of Medtronic's neurovascular division, said in a news release. "The Medina embolization device features advanced technology to treat cerebral aneurysms that we think can one day disrupt the coil market."

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Chris Newmarker is senior editor of Qmed and MPMN. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.