LeMaitre Vascular is an American medical device company established in 1986 by vascular surgeon George D. LeMaitre, and based in Burlington, Massachusetts,Joyce Pellino Crane, "Surgeon's idea and persistence gave rise to $30.5m company", The Boston Globe (November 17, 2005), p. NW-8. which provides devices, implants and human tissue cryopreservation services used by surgeons in the treatment of vascular conditions, particularly peripheral vascular disease."LeMaitre Vascular distribution deal ends", The Boston Globe (July 20, 2011), p. B8. , LeMaitre Vascular sells directly to hospitals in 25 countries and through distributors in more than 70 countries throughout North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific Rim.

History Origin The company's founder, George D. LeMaitre, M.D., was a practicing vascular surgeon in Massachusetts, chief of surgery at Lawrence General Hospital,Robert Reed, "Doctor who?", The Franklin Daily Journal (August 16, 1979), p. 4.Bill Dalton and Katharine Dalton, Legendary Locals of Andover (2013), p. 108. and a clinical instructor at his alma mater, the Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1981, LeMaitre treated an elderly colleague who required a procedure to reroute blood flow in his leg in order to avoid a potential amputation. LeMaitre found it necessary to develop a valvulotome to enable the procedure. Unsatisfied with the options that were available to him, LeMaitre worked with an engineer to design a new device himself. His first patented valvulotome could be used by a surgeon to cut valves in peripheral veins without the requirement of direct vision. As a result, the surgeon could prepare veins for arterial bypass with smaller incisions and less tissue trauma.

LeMaitre succeeded in treating the patient with this invention, leading to further efforts to improve the technology between 1981 and 1984. LeMaitre was so pleased with the success of this new device that he spent the next two years attempting to interest medical product companies in producing it. When none agreed to do so, he mortgaged his house and started his own company in 1986 to introduce the LeMaitre Valvulotome to his colleagues. That same year, the invention was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Growth and development Following LeMaitre's incorporation of the company, LeMaitre's son, George W. LeMaitre, joined the company and helped grow it from a family-owned company to a publicly held global corporation. In 1996, LeMaitre Vascular introduced the expandable LeMaitre valvulotome, which superseded the original circular-blade LeMaitre valvulotomes.James S. T. Yao, William H. Pearce, Advances in Vascular Surgery (2002), p. 241. After raising $3 million from investors in 1998, the senior LeMaitre decided to seek investments from other vascular surgeons. By 2004, when George D. LeMaitre stepped down as chair of the Board of Directors, the company had operations and facilities in Sulzbach, Germany, Phoenix, Arizona, St. Petersburg, Florida, Brymbo, Wales and beginning that year in Tokyo, Japan. Later in 2004, the company adopted a lean manufacturing approach to speed product production, and a 2005 profile described LeMaitre Vascular as a $30.5 million company with about 200 employees and "reporting explosive growth". By 2005, LeMaitre himself was noted as being "semiretired" from LeMaitre Vascular, and "focused on a second career in writing". In 2006, the company prepared an initial public offering of 6 million common shares, planned to be priced between $8 and $10 per share."LeMaitre Vascular to sell 6m shares at $8-$10 each", The Boston Globe (October 4, 2006), p. E2. In the late 2000s, LeMaitre had a distribution deal with California-based vascular products company Endologix, which the latter bought out in 2011. George D. LeMaitre died in 2018.

, LeMaitre Vascular has continued to develop, manufacture and market disposable and implantable vascular devices for use in both open vascular surgeries and minimally invasive procedures. LeMaitre Vascular's product portfolio has continued to grow as a result of the company's research and subsequent development of new vascular devices, including its most recent generation of LeMaitre's original valvulotome. The company has also expanded through various acquisitions. LeMaitre acquired Applied Medical's vascular clot management business for $14.2 million in 2018, and the biologic patch business of Admedus for $15.5 million in October 2019. In mid-2020, the company acquired vascular graft-maker Artegraft for $90 million, anticipating that the newly acquired product lines would be a substantial proportion of LeMaitre's U.S. sales going forward.

Products and acquisitions Product lines , the company was noted to have obtained a quarter of its revenues from sales of valvulotomes, with other products including "embolectomy catheters, carotid shunts, and radiopaque tape". , the company delineated its 13 product lines into six categories:

Aortic AV access Cardiac Carotid Lower extremity Neuro

Acquisitions Since its establishment, LeMaitre Vascular has also made acquisitions of product lines obtained by purchasing the line from other companies, or through purchasing another company in its entirety. These include:

+ LeMaitre Vascular acquisitions Year Acquisition Key products and services1998 Whittaker Screen Printing Radiopaque tape manufacturing operations1999 Vermed Embolectomy catheters2001 Ideas for Medicine Carotid shunts, balloon catheters, and laparoscopic cholecystectomy devices2003 Credent Polycarbonate grafts2004 VCS Clip Vessel closure systems2005 Endomed Stent grafts2007 Vascular Innovations Contrast injector2007 Vascular Architects Remote endarterectomy devices2007 UnBalloon Stent graft modeling catheters2007 Biomateriali Polyester grafts and patches2010 LifeSpan ePTFE grafts2012 XenoSure Biologic patches2013 Clinical Instruments Carotid shunts and embolectomy catheters2013 TRIVEX Powered phlebectomy system2014 Xenotis Pty Ltd Biosynthetic grafts2014 PeriVu Angioscopes2015 Tru-Incise (Eze-Sit) OUS Valve cutters2016 ProCol Biologic grafts2016 RestoreFlow Human tissue cryopreservation services2018 Syntel and Python Embolectomy catheters2018 Cardial Polyester grafts, valvulotomes, surgical glue2019 Tru-Incise (Eze-Sit) US Valve cutters2019 CardioCel and VascuCel Biologic patches2020 Artegraft Vascular graft production

Subsidiaries Over the history of its growth, LeMaitre Vascular has established a number of domestic and foreign subsidiaries to carry out its business nationally and internationally.

+ LeMaitre Vascular U.S. subsidiaries Subsidiary Place of incorporationLeMaitre UK Acquisition LLC DelawareLeMaitre Acquisition LLC DelawareVascutech Acquisition LLC Delaware

+ LeMaitre Vascular non-U.S. subsidiaries Subsidiary Place of incorporationBiomateriali S.r.l. ItalyLeMaitre Vascular GmbH GermanyLeMaitre Vascular GK JapanLeMaitre Vascular SAS FranceLeMaitre Vascular Spain, S.L. SpainLeMaitre Vascular S.r.l. Italy

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