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Kensey Nash Corp.'s Angio-Seal has proven it's resilient.
The Exton-based medical device company could do nothing but watch on the sidelines as one marketing partner, then another sold off the license rights to its Angio-Seal and its marketing fell by the wayside.
Despite the setback, its product, a seal for femoral arteries punctured during cardiac catheterization, retained its No. 1 market share and led an explosion in revenue that won Kensey Nash the 1999 Growth Company of the Year Enterprise award from the, Eastern Technology Council.
Angio-Seal is used during heart procedures like angiography, balloon angioplasty and stenting. "The device amounts to an absorbable collagen plug that's used to seal punctured arteries. The device takes about a minute to insert and is absorbed by the body in two or three months."
It reduces costs, and can increase a patients comfort and recovery time.
After Angio-Seal was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1996, Kensey Nash partnered with Sherwood Davis & Geck, a subsidiary of American Home Products Corp., to manufacture, market and distribute the device.
Then American Home sold SherwoodDavis to Tyco International's Kendall Health Care division in March of 1998.
One year later, Angio-Seal was on the block again.
"Tyco-Kendall is a major conglomerate on an acquisition spree and they made a strategic decision to divest of their international cardiology division," said Joseph W. Kaufman, president and chief executive officer of Kensey Nash.
Tyco sold the Angio-Seal license rights to St. Jude Medical Inc. in March of 1999 for $167 million. St....