Heartflow Inc. upped the price of shares in its IPO for a second time to $19 on Aug. 7 before opening on the Nasdaq as “HTFL” at $28 and climbing to $31.50 in early trading. The IPO raked in $316.7 million for the 16.67 million shares sold, giving the cardiology company a valuation of $2.27 billion.
Med-tech companies brought in $18.11 billion through financings in the first seven months of 2025, marking a modest rebound from the sector’s recent lows. The total surpasses the $11.73 billion raised during the same period in 2023 and slightly edged out the $16.59 billion raised in the same period in 2024.
Heartflow Inc. continued the steady rhythm of med-tech companies filing to go public, with an S-1 submitted to the U.S. SEC on July 17. The company joins 15 others that have completed IPOs in 2025 and one other in process – Carlsmed Inc., which a company spokesperson told BioWorld is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq on July 22.
For the second time in five years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed to erase the inpatient-onlylist over a span of three years, stating that physicians are capable of deciding which site of service is best for their patients.
Carlsmed Inc. launched its IPO at a price of $14 to $16 per share for 6.7 million shares, which would raise just over $100.5 million at the midpoint. The spinal surgery technology company could well pull in more money, if recent history provides guidance. Most med-tech IPOs this year have settled at the upper end of their price range, with Caris Life Sciences Inc. notably raising its price twice before going public at $21, a dollar more than the top of its initial range.
The IPO market for med-tech companies continues to set new records. With one IPO closed the last week of June, two slated for the first week of July and another pending, 2025 will shortly exceed the total number of IPOs closed in the previous two years combined as well as the number completed in 2022.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized the Medicare inpatient prospective payment system for fiscal year 2024 with a number of new and renewed new technology add-on payments (NTAPs) for the coming fiscal year. Controversially, however, the agency retained a proposal from the draft that requires that a product have received market authorization from the FDA by no later than May 1 of the prior fiscal year to qualify for NTAP payment, a provision that industry has blasted as exclusionary of products that merit an NTAP payment.
The U.S. CMS has a few changes in mind for the new technology add-on program (NTAP) for fiscal year 2024, including a proposal to allow manufacturers to apply for an NTAP payment only after the sponsor has filed a completed premarket application with the FDA. Perhaps more significantly, the deadline for FDA approval would also be moved up earlier in the calendar year, from July 1 to May 1, a change that could eliminate a year of NTAP eligibility for a significant number of products.
The U.S. CMS released the draft Medicare hospital outpatient rule for calendar year 2023, a document that is replete with information on pass-through payment data for drugs and devices. However, the agency said that the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding rates for drugs covered under the 340B drug pricing program came too late in the annual cycle to be fully accounted for in the outpatient rule for 2023, and thus any such permanent adjustments will have to wait until the outpatient rule for 2024.
With an oversubscribed $30 million series B in hand, Carlsmed Inc. is in a good posture to take the next steps in its plan to make its personalized spinal implants central to ending frequent revisions in spine surgery. The company’s Aprevo devices, which are 3D printed for each patient, received FDA breakthrough device designation and 510(k) clearance in late 2020.
