J&Jtobuy Danvers company for $16.6 billion

Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday it will pay $16.6 billion for a Danvers medical device firm that makes heart pumps, a deal that sent the Massachusetts company’s stock soaring more than 50 percent. The health care products conglomerate will pay $380 for each share of Abiomed, a premium of more than 50 percent over the closing price on Monday of $252.08. J&J will also provide another $35 a share if certain commercial and clinical goals are met. J&J said the acquisition broadens the New Brunswick, N.J.-based company’s efforts to treat cardiovascular disease and, in particular, heart failure. That condition occurs when the heart muscle doesn’t pump blood as well as it should and is the leading cause of hospitalization in people over 65 years old, according to the Food and Drug Administration. About 650,000 new cases are diagnosed in the United States each year. Abiomed makes Impella heart pumps, small devices with catheters that are threaded through arteries into the heart to help keep blood moving through the body. The pumps have been used to treat patients in the United States since 2008, according to the company. The firm has shown explosive growth recently, with sales jumping 22 percent to exceed $1 billion in its most recent fiscal year.

J&J, which has more than 140,000 employees worldwide, said in November that it was splitting its consumer products business from its pharmaceutical and medical device operations, creating two publicly traded companies. Abiomed was founded in 1981 with the goal of developing the world’s first artificial heart, according to a company history. The company turned its focus to heart and lung recovery with the acquisition and development of technologies such as Impella and the OXY-1 System, a device that adds oxygen to blood and removes carbon dioxide. In 2018, Abiomed agreed to pay $3.1 million to the federal government to settle allegations that sales representatives violated an antikickback statute to get doctors and nurses to use the firm’s heart pumps on Medicare patients between 2012 and 2015. — JONATHAN SALTZMAN