October 29, 2001 — BLOOMINGTON, MN — Medical device coatings-maker SurModics recently purchased a 135,000 square-foot research facility from Seagate Technology.

SurModics bought the former disk drive production facility for $7.1 million in expectation of growth from a new deal with Johnson & Johnson’s, according to a recent report in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. The facility’s cleanroom space was reportedly an important selling point for Bloomington-based company.

SurModics will provide medical device coatings for drug-coated stents made by Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis division. Stents are wire mesh devices that are used to hold open arteries after an angioplasty.

“This dwarfs anything we’ve got coming on — it will make or break us,” Stephen Hathaway, chief financial officer for SurModics told the Pioneer Press.

The new facility is double the size of the company’s current base of operations and sits on a 27-acre parcel of land.