Royal Philips NV has come to terms over class-action litigation in which plaintiffs alleged that particulate matter in continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines has proven harmful to their health, bringing the matter to a $1.1 billion conclusion. Despite the 10-figure sum, news of the April 29 settlement sent the company’s share prices up by roughly a third in early morning trading, suggesting that investors had already baked their expectations of the settlement into their thinking about the company’s future.
The U.S. FDA has announced a class I recall of Iveninx large-volume infusion pumps made by Fresenius Kabi USA of Lake Zurich, Ill., due to a mechanical issue with fluid valve pins that could cause the pumps to shut down. Fresenius is rolling out a remediation plan for more than 900 pumps affected by the recall, which to date has been associated with no reports of injury or death.
Resmed Inc. has acquired Somnoware Inc., a privately held developer of respiratory care diagnostics software, for an undisclosed price. The deal is Resmed’s third software acquisition in the past year, having snapped up German software-as-a-service (SaaS) maker Medifox Dan GmbH for $1 billion in June 2022 and Mementor GmbH last August.
Royal Philips NV released a grim annual report for 2022 that showed a little willingness to share the pain of an unabashedly awful year for the health tech company, which has been plagued by a recall fiasco that has bled into multiple years. Shareholders lost much of their investment with the company’s more than 60% drop in market value in 2022, 10,000 employees faced job loss and all current members of top management waived their annual incentive payouts. Notably, former CEO Frans van Houten, who was replaced in October and oversaw the ill-fated recall, did not waive his bonus of $208,370.
Royal Philips NV revealed plans to cut a further 6,000 jobs on top of the 4,000 announced in October as it sought to stabilize the business and improve its operational performance going into 2023. In total, the company will reduce its workforce by about 13%. Philip’s fourth quarter results came in ahead of consensus expectations, but the company still posted a loss of €105 million (US$108.2 million).
Resmed Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Medifox Dan GmbH, a German developer of out-of-hospital software solutions for providers in major settings across the care continuum, from software and services investor Hg. The deal – valued at roughly $1 billion – is expected to close by the end of the year, which is the end of the second quarter of Resmed’s 2023 fiscal year.
Like so many other ventilator providers in recent days, Resmed Inc. has committed to ramping up production. It aims to triple its ventilator output and multiply its ventilation mask production by 10. But the San Diego-based company’s specialty is not mechanical ventilation that requires intubation, which is most commonly used in the intensive care unit (ICU), although it does produce some of those.
As COVID-19 testing remains elusive in the U.S., much of the nation’s focus has started to shift to how to treat the presumed millions of patients who are already or soon to be infected with the novel coronavirus.
With the high need for ventilators in the face of COVID-19, Ventec Life Systems, of Bothell, Wash., is stepping up with its multifunction ventilator, known as VOCSN, for ventilation, oxygen, cough, suction and nebulization.
It was a standout quarter for San Diego-based Resmed Inc., which saw revenues jump to $681.1 million, with the U.S., Canada and Latin America serving as bright spots. "We have started fiscal year 2020 right where we left off with 2019," Michael Farrell, Resmed's CEO, said during a call on the results. "Our team achieved another quarter of the balanced growth across the portfolio, driven by continued strong performance in the mask category."
