After reviewing its strategic options for more than a year—a period that also saw its shares delisted from the Nasdaq—the surgical robot developer Titan Medical has found a new path forward.
The company has decided to combine itself with Conavi Medical, a Canada-based maker of imaging and guidance tech for minimally invasive cardiovascular procedures. The deal amounts to a reverse takeover of Titan—which, upon completion slated for mid-July, will see the departure of Titan’s officers and certain directors, and is ultimately expected to end with Conavi going public.
Titan’s shares were removed from the Nasdaq in March 2023 after more than a year in penny-stock territory, but the company continued to trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Through its transaction with Conavi, Titan will acquire all of the latter’s outstanding shares and exchange them with its own—at a ratio that values Conavi at $69.8 million U.S., minus certain deal expenses. Then, Titan said it plans to delist its shares from the Toronto Stock Exchange, before applying to be listed on the same market’s TSX Venture Exchange, which will serve as Conavi’s future home.
“This planned merger comes at a pivotal moment in the evolution of our company as we continue to advance the Novasight Hybrid System, which provides simultaneous and complementary data with which to better inform patient care while offering providers a more cost- and space-effective option when purchasing intravascular imaging equipment,” Conavi CEO Thomas Looby said in a statement.
The Novasight system combines intravascular ultrasound and optical coherence tomography to map out the heart’s coronary arteries; it has collected regulatory green lights from the FDA, Health Canada and Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
“Gaining access to the public capital markets will enhance our financial strength and fuel our growth strategy, enabling us to unlock the full potential of our hybrid imaging technology in the United States and globally,” Looby said.
Over the past year, Titan has seen layoffs and furloughs, as well as the end of R&D work and production of its Enos Surgical System—while it divided up its robotic technologies among some of the industry’s major players. Intellectual property licensing deals were signed with the likes of Intuitive Surgical, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson’s Auris Health.
According to Titan, it had sought out a takeover agreement within the robotic-assisted surgery sector but broadened its search to include developers such as Conavi after that path was deemed “not a viable option.”