
Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) is shedding more light on a top-down restructuring that has seen it re-align or replace more than 75 percent of its top 50 senior managers in the past year.
“We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what the senior management team needs to be,” BSX CFO Jeff Capello said at the Barclay’s Capital 2011 Global Healthcare Conference. “The senior management team that’s rejuvenated is in place.”
The company has also realigned its compensation program, reducing short term compensation and creating a broader employee stock purchase program, Capella added.
“Employees and and shareholders are now aligned on driving value,” he said.
Capello also highlighted four areas of strategic interest for the company, which is now employing a “buy-and-build” strategy within areas where Boston Scientific is already strong. One of those markets is structural heart, which Capello called a “big focus” for the company, citing the recent acquisitions of Sadra Medical and Atritech as its first step into this hot market.
Structural heart products make a lot of sense for Boston Scientific because it already has a strong pipeline of potential customers from its CRM businesses, he added. Currently, Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) and Edwards Lifesciences Inc. (NYSE:EW) each have a strong position in those markets.
For its part, Boston Scientific is clearly thinking big when it comes to the next generation of its Promus Element stent, predicting a $200 million operating profit after launches in the U.S. and Japan, expected in mid-2012.
“Promus is very exciting,” Capello said, noting that the next-generation stent has gone from a zero percent share of the market to more than 25 percent in a short time. “We think it’s the best technology in the market. … This is clearly a winner.”
Capella didn’t foresee any delay in the market launch due to the devastating earthquake in Japan; a Boston Scientific spokesman did not offer any further comment when asked if the quake might delay the Promus launch or the new Taxus Element stent, scheduled to hit the Japanese market in mid-2011.