GTCR Dips into Devices with Devicor

Private equity firm GTCR Golder Rauner LLC has spent the past decade building pharmaceutical and health care services companies, sometimes from scratch, sometimes jumping in as a hefty financial backer. The firm scored some successes, the most notable and recent being the announced sale of Lundbeck Inc. for a possible purchase price of $900 million. [See Deal] Such a price tag would deliver old-school venture returns to the Chicago-based PE firm, at a time when venture capital firms can't deliver such returns. Despite successes in the pharmaceutical and health care services industries, GTCR has steered clear of the medical device industry.

It was nothing personal. GTCR long recognized the opportunity medical devices presented as a sort of third leg to its health care strategy stool. What it lacked, according to partners,...