Those two facts interleave in a weird way. Covidien bought the company the US government contracted to build affordable ventalators in 2012. Medtronic bought Covidien in 2015 as a tax inversion. So Medtronic didn't really kill the project. Also, what was the DOJ doing when Covidien bought Newport? If the project was going as well as the NYT suggests, why didn't the justice department get more involved? Granted, hindsight, and all.