[4][5] Founding partners Anthony Adducci, Manny Villafaña, Jim Baustert, and Art Schwalm, were former Medtronic employees.

As a one-product company, CPI was susceptible to changing market conditions, and its founders knew they needed to diversify.

"Lilly had the research expertise, highly compatible interests, and similar values," Anthony Adducci recalls.

Before the final negotiations in late 1978, there were numerous flights between Minneapolis and Indianapolis for CPI principals and representatives of Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood's corporate finance department.

Lilly, a pharmaceutical giant, and CPI, the upstart pacemaker company, sat down at a bargaining table at a motel in suburban Bloomington, Minnesota.

CPI's negotiation team included Anthony Adducci, Art Schwalm, Tom King, and Hunt Greene.

[7] CPI designed and manufactured the world's first pacemaker with a lithium anode and a lithium-iodide electrolyte solid-state battery.