ARTICLE SUMMARY:
After its spin-off from Baxter in 2000, Edwards’ strategy was more “Don’t make waves” than “Shake things up.” But the promise of transcatheter valve replacement was too great and now, two decades after the launch of its TAVR program, Edwards stands atop the cardiovascular device industry. A roundtable discussion with Mike Mussallem, Larry Wood, and Bernard Zovighian.
Just over 20 years ago, after its spin-off from Baxter International, newly public Edwards Lifesciences Corp. embarked on a corporate strategy that effectively and intentionally separated itself from the high-stakes strategies of leading cardiovascular companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic plc, and Boston Scientific Corp. While the latter enjoyed a period of fast growth and significant value creation pursuing new technologies, like drug-eluting stents, Edwards, under the guidance of CEO Mike Mussallem, pursued a very different path, focusing on chronic conditions and long-term cardiac conditions with a variety of technologies that those other, more aggressive competitors couldn’t be bothered with. Given its focus on chronic and their surgical challenges, it’s not too much to say that, publicly at least, Edwards was glad to occupy a competitive space that left the high-risk, often messy arm’s race of its interventional rivals behind.
