ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Already on the ropes as the result of a deal that went wrong, Endologix was saddled with a mountain of debt when the pandemic hit, all but squashing any hopes of pulling itself out of its downward spiral. The only solution: taking the public company private, which it did with the help of Deerfield Management.
God knows, the pandemic has been a difficult time for many medtech companies. Start-ups trying to enroll patients in clinical trials found prospective investigators overwhelmed with caring for COVID patients; companies big and small faced sales and commercialization challenges as many hospitals and patients deferred elective procedures. For most companies—those that were well run and had sound underlying fundamentals—the onset, in particular, of the pandemic was a time of quick adjustment, treading water, and hoping for a return to normal.
But for some companies, the pandemic exposed or underscored long-standing problems, and the challenges brought on by COVID pushed them to the brink. For nearly 30 years, Endologix LLC was one of the most promising companies in the development of devices to treat AAAs (abdominal aortic aneurysms) and even did a successful public offering. But the stresses of the pandemic revealed long-standing problems and past missteps, and resulted in the move in 2020 by the company to go private through a voluntary bankruptcy process. Its emergence from bankruptcy as a private company in 2020, in a deal led by mega-investor Deerfield Management, represents what those investors and the company’s physician-customers hope is a return to prominence for the company.
