Johnson & Johnson JNJ +0.76% plans to seek a buyer for a business that makes medical devices including stents and catheters, said people familiar with the matter, the latest effort by the health care giant to pare its wide-ranging portfolio.

The sales process for the business, called Cordis, is at an early stage, the people said. The business, which could fetch between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, is expected to attract interest from private-equity firms and other health-care companies, one of the people said.

Cordis, based in Bridgewater, N.J., employs roughly 5,000 people and focuses on less-invasive treatments for vascular disease, according to its website. J&J, a pioneer in stents that prop open clogged heart arteries, said three years ago it would get out of that business. Cordis today counts other types of stents among its products and also makes catheters and provides minimally invasive computer-based imaging.

A sale of Cordis would mark the latest divestiture for J&J, as the health-care conglomerate looks to shed slower-growth businesses and reduce annual costs by $1 billion. J&J earlier this year sold its blood-testing unit, called Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, for $4.15 billion to private-equity firm Carlyle Group CG +0.09% LP. J&J, based in New Brunswick, N.J., makes everything from prescription drugs and medical devices to Band Aids and Listerine mouth wash.

News of its attempted sale of Cordis comes after J&J, which created the roughly $5 billion global market for cardiac stents, said in 2011 that it would leave the business, succumbing to years of slumping sales and market share as it shifted its focus to other medical technologies promising higher growth.

A deal for Cordis would also be the latest in a flurry of healthcare mergers-and-acquisitions activity, which has been a key engine in the strong recent volume of takeover deals. Medical-device companies have, in turn, been a key contributor to health care deal volume.

In some of the more noteworthy transactions of late, Medtronic Inc. MDT +1.16% is working on completing a roughly $43 billion acquisition of Covidien COV +0.15% PLC, while Zimmer Holdings Inc. ZMH -0.14% in April agreed to buy rival device manufacturer Biomet Inc. for more than $13 billion. Meanwhile, Endo International ENDP -0.48% PLC has put its medical-device business up for sale, people familiar with the matter said last week. The business, known as AMS, supplies devices to treat pelvic disorders such as incontinence.

source:WSJ