Otsuka and ReCor Announce Merger Agreement

July 10, 2018—Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd., Otsuka Medical Devices Co., Ltd., and ReCor Medical, Inc. announced the signing of a merger agreement pursuant to which Otsuka Holdings will acquire the remaining shares in ReCor from its current holders. The transaction is subject to approval by ReCor’s shareholders.

The acquisition comes after the announcement by ReCor that the US Food and Drug Administration has granted approval to initiate a pivotal clinical study, RADIANCE II, for the evaluation of the company's Paradise renal denervation system for safe and effective reduction of blood pressure in patients with hypertension.

Results of the RADIANCE-HTN SOLO study of the Paradise system, which met its primary efficacy endpoint and demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in blood pressure in hypertensive patients, were presented at the EuroPCR 2018 meeting held May 21–25 in Paris, France, and simultaneously published by Professor Michel Azizi, MD, et al in The Lancet (2018;391:2335–2345).

Following the acquisition, ReCor plans to continue to develop and evaluate the Paradise system in patients with hypertension in preparation for worldwide commercialization, as well as explore its use in additional clinical applications such as heart failure, kidney disease, and metabolic disorders, while also building the Otsuka Medical Devices’ incubation and clinical development hub in the United States and Europe.