Occlutech obtains favourable ruling in proceedings initiated by AGA Medical

Jena (ots) - Occlutech GmbH today announced that it had defeated a
request for insolvency, launched at the Amtsgericht Gera in Germany
by its US competitor AGA Medical.

The request by AGA was based on wrongful assumptions about
Occlutech, and AGA announced that it had started the said request to
recover damages. However, the court - Amtsgericht Gera in Germany -
stated, that a proceeding regarding any damages has not yet been
started.

"Occlutech intends to maintain a healthy business in vascular
intervention based on excellent products for cardiac occlusion as
well as coronary and peripheral intervention. We have de-veloped a
new range of innovative occluders for treating PFO and ASD in order
not to violate the recent German patent ruling," said Tor Peters who
was appointed CEO in late January and continued: "We expect to be on
the market shortly with the new version."

Occlutech won against AGA Medical in the Patent Court in The Hague
in October last year. AGA Medical appealed against this decision by
the Patent Court in The Hague and the proceeding is pending.

In Germany, AGA Medical won a patent infringement litigation
before the appeal court in Düsseldorf. This decision has no relevance
outside Germany though.

"Our response to this is threefold," said Tor Peters. "First we
decided to appeal the court's decision and initiated a complaint
against the appeal court's revision-disallowance. The appeal court's
decision is therefore not final, contrary to what was indicated by
our competitor. Secondly, we are pursuing invalidation proceedings to
invalidate the relevant AGA Medical patent. The case will be heard in
Munich in September. Thirdly, we have developed a version of the
occluder that does not violate any ruling. This occluder will be
launched in Germany before the summer. Manufacturing, development,
marketing and sales outside of Germany have not been impacted and
will remain unchanged."

Occlusion devices are used to treat structural heart disease,
including structural heart defects and abnormalities such as Atrial
Septal Defects, (ASD), and Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO, an undesired
channel between the heart's two atria, present in up to 25% of the
population), in minimally invasive, non-surgical procedures. The
market for PFO occluders is expected to expand significantly as the
link between PFO and stroke, that is the third most common cause of
death, as well as severe migraine becomes increasingly well
documented.

Originaltext: Occlutech GmbH
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Pressekontakt:
Tor Peters
tor.peters@occlutech.se
Tel.: +46 42 33 65 20

Katrin Biedermann
katrin.biedermann@occlutech.de
Tel.: +49 3641 67 51 20