Edwards Lifesciences Corporation

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation is an American medical device company headquartered in Irvine, California, a leading maker of devices for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring. Its origins trace to the work of engineer Miles Lowell Edwards, who partnered with heart surgeon Dr. Albert Starr in the late 1950s and early 1960s to develop the Starr-Edwards valve, the first artificial heart valve to see widespread clinical use. The company operated for decades as part of Baxter International before being spun off as an independent public company in 2000, and Edwards Lifesciences has since become a leader in transcatheter heart valve therapies, including the Sapien valve line used to replace diseased heart valves without open-heart surgery.