HHS subpoenas Boston Scientific's CRM division

November 6, 2009 by MassDevice staff

The U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services wants information on donations to charitis with ties to doctors; Taxus sales continue to slide.

Boston Scientific Corp. said it received a subpoena from the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services seeking information from its cardiac rhythm management division, according to a regulatory filing.

The subpoena, which Natick, Mass.-based medical device maker said it received Sept. 25, seeks "certain information relating to contributions made by CRM to charities with ties to physicians or their families," according to the filing.

"We are currently working with the government to understand the scope of the subpoena," BSX said in the filing.

The company also said sales of its Taxus line of cornoary stents continues to slide. During the three months ended Sept. 30, worldwide Taxus sales were $245 million, down 9.6 percent compared with $271 million during the same period last year. Taxus sales have declined significantly over the past two years as competition has stiffened from other drug-eluting stent makers like Medtronic or Johnson & Johnson's Cordis Corp. subsidiary. Even so, BSX said it lays claim to an estimated 49 percent share of the DES market in the U.S.

On a more positive note, sales of the Promus stent, Boston Scientific's private label version of Abbott's Xience stent, grew 32.8 percent to $166 million during the third quarter, compared with $125 million during Q3 2008. And even though the arrangement with Abbott is coming to an end, BoSci's next-generation Promus Element won CE Marking in the European Union earlier this month.

The company also paid down $725 million in debt during the first nine months of the year, leaving $6 billion in total debt and a $3.75 billion nut due in 2011.