Stryker Corp. (NYSE:SYK) says a new clinical trial proves that its Matrix detachable coil devices are as effective as an older version of a catheter-fed coil, which has been on the market for more than 15 years.
Researchers said the company’s Matrix Detachable Coils were as effective as GDC detachable coils in treating ruptured and unruptured aneurysms in results from the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based company’s Matrix and Platinum Science or MAPS trial.
The results of the study were released at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS) 8th Annual Meeting in Colorado Springs. The trial, which began in 2007 looked at 626 patients with a single aneurysm, comparing the two treatments. GDC coils have been on the market since 1995 and have been implanted in more than 250,000 patients. The technology was developed by Target Therapeutics, which was acquired by Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) in 1997 and then sold to Stryker earlier this year.
The new Matrix coils use a PGLA polymer on the outside of a traditional platinum coil, which is designed to degrade over time and promote tissue development.
The current clinical procedures for treating aneurysms include brain surgery, which is curative but risky, and catheter-fed coils.
In the trial, Stryker said 96 percent of patients with unruptured aneurysms and 90 percent of patients with acutely ruptured aneurysms were alive and free of disability up to 15 months after treatment. In addition, they said that post operative results with recurrence in aneurysms with good occlusion were “significantly” better with its Matrix coils with just 2.7 percent of recurrence compared to 9.6 percent with GDC.
Stryker is relatively new to the neurovascular business, having bought the division from BSX last October for $1.5 billion. The acquisition put the company in direct competition with the other big dogs in the aneurysm treatment game, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Covidien (NYSE:COV).
Last quarter the business unit boosted the company’s neurotechnology business by 146 percent.
Stryker CFO Curt Hartman was bullish on the unit’s potential during a recent conference call with investors, saying the company felt “very good” about where the business was at the halfway mark of the year, while admitting there were some market challenges the company was experiencing.
“We like where the new products are taking us. We like the stickiness with customers who have used the products,” he said. “All of that said, there are some market challenges in the neurovascular space today, given things like Brazil and reimbursement cut that I mentioned in the first quarter. That’s still to be sorted out, hopefully some time in the second half of this year. So like any business, it has its headwind, but generally on track with the direction and pleased with it through the first 6 months.”
