Just for further comparison, Anteris at $15 USD a share is about a $700 million USD company fully diluted. Plenty of runway for growth yet.

And TAVR accounts for about 75% of Edwards’ revenue (and I’d hazard a guess that the high margin TAVR space accounts for an even larger percentage of its profit).

@PabloEskyBruh on your earlier point about M&A, I agree that $AVR has a high chance of being acquired, particularly if it starts to report positive interim results in PARADIGM.

For both Edwards and Medtronic, let's assume they'd have to pay a 100% premium to today's $7.50. That's a AUD540m acquisition or US$360m.

Now think of that in the context of Edwards, which report 2024 TAVR sales of US$4.1bn and forecast this year to have US$1,2bn FCF overall.

Or Medtronic, where the Structural Heart and Aortic franchise has FY25 sales of US$3,6bn and the overall business had US$5bn in FCF.

Not only is it strategically a relatively cheap insurance premium to support their existing leadership positions in this therapy area, both are well funded to support the PARADIGM program without batting an eyelid.

Or, perhaps you could see Abbott making a play. Their annual revenues in the therapy category are much smaller (perhaps c. $2bn), growing strongly, and they are investing in this area.

If DurAVR turns our to be a superior product, then the stakes are high for any of these 3 players to get their hands on it. And given their established product ranges and market presences in this area, then DurAVR is probably more valuable in their hands.

I don't invest solely on an M&A thesis, but I think you'd reaonably have to give M&A in this case a 30% to 50% likelihood.

I've asked my BA to have a look at this question, and I'll post their response in a separate straw!

Disc: Not held

I like those odds @mikebrisy . Thankfully CEO Paterson is taking much more about partnership (rather than full acquisition) these days. My thoughts on potential suitors has changed over the years. I think the incumbents (Edwards, Medtronic, and — to a much lesser extent — Abbot) have left it too late now. They risk too much damage to their own brands in anyway endorsing DurAVR and it takes away a lot of the asymmetry for them. Boston Scientific still a possibility I think, but they’re possibly still reeling from having their fingers burnt with the failure of ACURATE. Which, to me, leaves Johnson & Johnson as the favourite. At 450 billion USD market cap they are the biggest, with a growing structural heart component but still no TAVR.

@PabloEskyBruh I guess it comes down to price. If the acquirer wants an outright acquisition, then all they have to do is add "+20%" onto the valuation of a partnership deal, and the $AVR Board has to recommend a sale.

Based on pitchbook databases in single device medical device acquisitions at pre-approval, 60-65% are outright acquisitions, 15-20% are structured acquisitions ("option to buy"), while only 15-20% are partnerships.

I think Wayne has to try to develop partnerships, because $AVR has no commercial capability, and would have to build from scratch. Interestingly, it is through the partnership discussions that the outright acquisition could potentially emerge.

Your points about Boston Scientific and J&J versus my list are good points. If anything, it reinforces that there is a wider universe of firms who would reasonably be interested in $AVR.

I’m hoping the price is as near prohibitive as it gets. As long as there is more than one entity interested, that’s all Anteris needs for a bidding war.