Federal Trade Commission Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

Resonetics closes $900M nitinol deal and rebrands Memry and Smart Materials

Nitinol is used for a variety of medtech applications. [Photo via Adobe Stock]

Resonetics has closed on its $900 million acquisition of the SAES Getters medical nitinol business.

Nashua, New Hampshire-based Resonetics said it will rebrand Memry Corporation and SAES Smart Materials as Resonetics.

The Smart Materials business creates raw nitinol alloy from nickel and titanium and produces nitinol wires, bars, ribbons and sheets. The Memry business offers electric discharge machining, laser processing, centerless grinding, and nitinol tubing, sheet, and wire fabrication.

Those two companies have around 600 employees at facilities in Bethel, Connecticut, New Hartford, New York, and Menlo Park, California.

Nitinol has superelastic and shape memory properties that make it uniquely useful for a variety of medical applications. Medical device developers are finding new and improved ways to use nit…

FTC concludes antitrust investigation of $900M SAES-Resonetics nitinol deal

Nitinol is used for a variety of medtech applications. [Photo via Adobe Stock]

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its antitrust investigation into Resonetics’ planned $900 million purchase of the SAES Getters medical nitinol business.

Milan, Italy-based SAES said it and Resonetics “will define the timing to finalize the closing of the transaction” in the coming days and will provide further updates.

The company did not say whether the FTC will allow the sale without conditions, but it doesn’t sound like the agency or the Department of Justice will sue over the transaction. More information was not immediately available.

Nashua, New Hampshire-based Resonetics signed a binding agreement in January 2023 to buy the medical nitinol division from SAES, including U.S. subsidiaries Memry Corp. and SAES Smart Materials. The business supplies medical device manufacturers with ra…

FTC and DOJ staff eyes new ways to enforce antitrust laws in pharma

A two-day virtual workshop from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) mulled the current state of antitrust law enforcement in the pharmaceutical industry, discussing the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in driving up prices for consumers.

“A competitively vibrant market protects access to existing drugs and promotes new innovation, but access to medicine is already in peril by untenable costs,” said Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, an FDA commissioner in the workshop, which was held June 14–15.

M&A plays a role in driving up costs, Slaughter argued. “When mergers diminish competition in pharmaceutical markets, the result is higher prices, which can have a devastating effect for patients,” she said. “Enforcement action is necessary to prevent such harms.”

The workshop was organized by the Multilateral Pharmaceutical Merger Task Force, formed in March 2021 by then-Acting FTC Cha…