The Return of Dr. Kurt Amplatz

Now What?

Out of distaste rather than genuine ignorance, Amplatz explains AGA’s current management structure thus: “The major shareholder is my son-in-law. Then there are some companies coming out of New York. I just call them Wall Street. I have no idea.” Recalling that he sold Afremov his original stake for $100, he regards the settlement as a travesty and the new ownership arrangement as a nuisance best ignored.

He prefers to spend his time at AGA in his workshop rather than his office. The shop, which could fit into a one-car garage, contains an upright milling machine, a lathe, a band saw, some hammers and hacksaws, and “raw stock”—rods of aluminum, brass, and acrylic.  “When [Amplatz] is in here,” says AGA engineer Bob Laine, looking at the lathe, “he’s a very happy camper.”

Gougeon is more ambivalent about the trial’s outcome. “We’ve lost something very unique—a small-company mentality geared toward patient care. We still have that focus, but we’re more corporate now,” he says. At the same time, he’s “very happy we could preserve the company, and that we could come back.”

Welsh Carson “so far has been very supportive,” he adds. The private equity firm’s backing is welcome for reasons including a need for new quarters. AGA has outgrown its Golden Valley space and is moving into the much larger former Qwest building off Highway 169 in Plymouth this year.

Welsh Carson’s money will also help with the expense of conducting clinical trials, including trials associated with a surprising side effect of one of AGA’s occluders: It may be an effective treatment for migraines.

One common type of hole between the upper chambers of the heart is called a patent foramen ovale, or PFO. It’s supposed to close on its own shortly after birth, but in about 25 percent of the population it stays open. That’s generally not a problem, but it has been associated with a higher risk of stroke in some people. The Amplatzer PFO Occluder is used to close the hole in at-risk patients, and those who suffer from migraines report a phenomenon that doctors can’t explain yet: Their crippling headaches diminish or disappear.

“This is not a proven therapy yet,” Gougeon cautions. But if trials now underway prove it out, PFO closure could be used to treat perhaps 3 million of the 28 million migraine sufferers in the United States. (Competitors, including Little Canada–based St. Jude Medical, are testing similar devices for migraine treatment.)

And When He’s Not Playing Tennis?

A question remains. Nobody who has met Kurt Amplatz would believe that he just sat on his hands during the year and a half when he was banned from AGA and “had no work.” How did he really occupy himself until he came back to the company last July?

“Played a lot of tennis,” is the first gruff response. Well, all right, he admits, that isn’t quite the whole story. He also spent some time in the physics shop at the University of Minnesota. “I had donated quite a bit of money to the Minnesota Medical Foundation, which made it possible for me to work with the engineers and machinists at the shop,” he says.

Doing what? Well, from time to time a physician somewhere in the world would call to describe a patient with an unusual problem requiring a unique device of some sort, so Amplatz would go into the shop and make a one-off prototype, as has been his practice for years. (This has created “tension with the FDA” on occasion, Helms says; Amplatz’s impatience with paperwork means that he tends to “save a baby’s life first and tell the FDA later.”)