Fred Khosravi and AccessClosure (B)

It was January 2013, and Fred Khosravi, chairman of the board of AccessClosure Inc., wondered what the new year had in store for him and AccessClosure, the company he founded in late 2002. Khosravi was cautiously optimistic—the Mountain View, California-based medical device company had been cash flow positive for seven consecutive quarters with annual revenues over $70 million. Since 2007, it had shipped well over 1.5 million of its vascular closure device (VCD), the Mynx, which was stocked in more than 1,200 catheter labs worldwide. However, a 2008 patent infringement lawsuit filed by St. Jude Medical, the VCD market leader, loomed large. The case was on appeal, and a three-judge panel would hear arguments in March 2013. If AccessClosure lost its appeal, it faced a $27.1 million judgment for patent infringement and a permanent injunction from selling its Mynx family of VCDs, its sole source of revenue.