According to the law firm press release, Edwards Lifesciences Corp. is a medical device maker that designs and markets, among other things, artificial heart valves for implantation in patients with advanced cardiovascular disease. The Company offers a range of such valves, including both valves that require traditional open-chest surgery, and its newer SAPIEN line of transcatheter heart valves (“THVs”), which may be implanted using a minimally invasive procedure.
The Complaint alleges that the Company issued false and/or misleading statements and failed to disclose material facts related to the prospects, projected sales and adoption of the Company’s Edwards SAPIEN transcatheter aortic heart valve, including the related transfemoral and transapical delivery methods (“SAPIEN”), and related projections of financial performance for the Company’s operations. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that the Defendants knew but concealed from Edwards Lifesciences’ shareholders during the Class Period that: (1) adoption of SAPIEN was weaker than the Company claimed, due to concerns among physicians over the risks and complexity of the procedure for implanting the valve; (2) Edwards Lifesciences’ outlook for sales and earnings per share (“EPS”) was significantly weaker than the optimistic guidance Defendants offered to investors; and (3) as a result, Defendants lacked a reasonable basis for the statements made concerning the Company’s operations, forecasts and outlook.
On April 23, 2013, the Company disclosed that approximately 20 candidate hospitals had postponed SAPIEN training, that there was substantially no backlog of patients awaiting SAPIEN implants, and that the Company’s financial results had been and would likely continue to be weaker than estimated. In response to this news, Edwards Lifesciences’ stock price fell $18.21 per share, or 21.99 percent, to close at $64.60 per share on April 24, 2013 on extremely heavy trading volume.
On February 21, 2014, the Plaintiffs filed a Notice voluntarily dismissing this case.
