[10] Shortly after his appointment as St. Jude Medical CEO, Rees directed the company to begin development of its own carbon coating.

[4] This decision led to a legal battle with CarboMedics, the sole supplier of carbon coating for the company's heart valves.

[14] The two companies also entered into an agreement that allowed St. Jude Medical to continue developing and producing limited quantities of its own carbon coating.

[4] In 1986, the first St. Jude Medical heart valve created with the company's own carbon coating technology was implanted into a human in Germany.

In April 1991, St. Jude Medical engaged in a joint venture with Hancock Jaffe Laboratories to create Heart Valve Company.

[18] Lehmkuhl, who had presided over a ninefold increase in annual sales during his tenure as CEO, was named chairman of the St. Jude Medical board.

[21] Also in January of that year, St. Jude Medical became the sole owner of Heart Valve Company when it purchased Hancock Jaffe Laboratories' 50% share in the joint venture.

[26] Starks had previously served as chief executive officer of Daig Corporation from 1986 to 1996, when St. Jude Medical acquired the company.

[28] At the time of its acquisition, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems was the second-largest supplier of devices that use electrotherapy to treat chronic pain and nerve disorders.

[39] St. Jude Medical acquired Nanostim Inc., a Sunnyvale, California-based privately owned developer of miniaturized, leadless pacemakers, for $123.5 million in October 2013.

[41] St. Jude Medical continued the restructuring it started in 2014 with its consolidation of the company's two operating units—the implantable electronic systems and the cardiovascular and ablation technologies units—into single research and development division.

[44] In September 2015, St. Jude Medical announced that Daniel Starks would retire as chairman, president, and chief executive officer.

On January 1, 2016, Michael T. Rousseau succeeded Starks as president, CEO and a member of the St. Jude Medical Board of Directors.

[45] St. Jude Medical also operates six technology centers located in Brussels, Belgium, Beijing, China, Tokyo, Japan, Austin, Texas, St. Paul, Minnesota and Sylmar, California.

[46][47][48] These centers offer training to physicians and allow them to simulate patient procedures using St. Jude Medical devices and technologies.

[51] In 2013, the company began marketing the Ilumen Optis device, which is a diagnostic and assessment tool for patients with coronary artery disease.

[52] The device uses fractional flow reserve for measuring intra-arterial pressure and optical coherence tomography technology, which allows doctors to visually examine inside a patient's arteries.

They are designed without the requirement for a lead, the thin wires inserted through a vein which connect the generator to the heart, or surgical pocket.

[57] In June 2014, St. Jude Medical acquired and began developing CardioMEMS HF System, a wireless pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) monitoring technology.

[62] In January 2013, the Food and Drug Administration sent St. Jude Medical a warning letter detailing concerns regarding processes at the company's Sylmar, California facility.