For Apollo Endosurgery, a bet on older Allergan tech starts paying off

Apollo Endosurgery spent $90 million-plus nearly two years ago to acquire the Lap-Band gastric band weight loss system and the in-development Orbera intra-gastric balloon from Allergan (NYSE: AGN). A well-trained, international sales force also came with the acquisition. Recently, I asked founder, president & chief commercial officer Dennis McWilliams if the investment was worth it, and he gave a brief reply. “Most certainly.” We talked during a telephone interview a few weeks after the FDA granted a premarket approval for Orbera to treat adult patients dealing with obesity who have a body mass index of 30 to 40. McWilliams was bullish about the milestone and what will follow. Lap-Band was already widely used around the world before Apollo stepped in, and the global sales force that went with it is a vital tool to help continue to support and build that business, he noted. The same goes for Orbera. With this device, Apollo gained a product that already served a significant overseas market, having been implanted in more than 200,000 patients globally. Now that the FDA’s approval is out, Orbera gets to enter “the most important bariatric market in the world,” McWilliams said. “For us to finally get approval for that, is the culmination of a lot of work, and a lot of people, and we’re happy as a company to be able to take advantage of this product from a commercial perspective now in the U.S.,” McWilliams added. Even without...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tags: Blog Weight loss Allergan Inc. Apollo Endosurgery Source Type: news