Johnson & Johnson is exiting the left atrial appendage closure space, and a newly formed startup just picked up what it left behind. Jaguar LAA, Inc. announced the acquisition of assets from J&J’s Laminar program, a catheter-based technology designed to close and eliminate the LAA using rotational motion while leaving minimal device material exposed inside the left atrium. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal includes not just the assets themselves: members of the team that developed them are joining the newly incorporated company.
That design detail, minimal residual device exposure in the left atrium, is where Jaguar is staking its differentiation. The two FDA-approved percutaneous LAA closure devices already on the market, Boston Scientific’s WATCHMAN and Abbott’s Amulet, both leave an implant in place within the atrium. Whether Laminar’s approach translates that structural difference into a clinical one is the question the program’s next development stages will need to answer. Non-valvular AFib is common enough that even incremental improvements in device profile matter at scale: stroke risk in this population rises sharply with comorbidities, making LAA closure an active area of cardiology and electrophysiology practice.
Jaguar was formed in partnership with Santé Ventures, the Austin- and Boston-based healthcare investment firm with more than $1 billion under management, alongside the Laminar management team and other investors. Santé led both the company formation and the transaction with J&J. Structurally, Jaguar does what a spin-out of this type is designed to do: it consolidates the intellectual property, the technical expertise, and the institutional backing in one place, then pursues regulatory clearance without the constraints of a large-device portfolio around it.
The program still has development and regulatory review ahead of it, so the timeline to a U.S. approval bid is not set. The number to track is how quickly Jaguar moves from its existing clinical and development work into a pivotal study design, which will determine whether the minimal-exposure claim can be tested at the scale regulators require.
Jon Napitupulu is Director of Media Relations at The Clinical Trial Vanguard. Jon, a computer data scientist, focuses on the latest clinical trial industry news and trends.
