The Medical Device Business Journal — Medical Device News & Articles | MassDevice
First-quarter sales for Boston Scientific Corp. slipped 1.8 percent to $2.01 billion, compared with $2.05 billion during the same period last year, as it struggles with a large chunk of long-term debt and fights expensive legal battles on a number of fronts.
The Natick-based devices giant plunged into the red, posting a $13 million net loss for the quarter ending March 31, compared with net income of $322 million during the first quarter of 2008.
NMT Medical Inc.’s StarFlex ventricular septum repair implant landed pre-market approval from the federal Food & Drug Administration.
The Boston-based company’s device is designed to be inserted into the hearts of patients with defects in the wall between the ventricular chambers.
The StarFlex implant closes the defect, preventing already-oxygenated blood from returning to the lungs before being pumped back into the body.
Brad Perriello
You’d think after about 20 years, questions about the efficacy of stents would be settled. You’d be wrong.
Even as players large and small scramble to get the first bioabsorbable product to market, there are conflicting reports about the best way to treat heart disease — devices or drugs?
NMT Medical Inc. said it will release data from the clinical trial of its StarFlex implant.
Analysis of data from the study, which aims to determine whether the device can help prevent stroke or ischemia from patent formane ovale, is due to be released during the fourth quarter of 2010. PFO is a defect in the septum separating the heart’s atrial chambers.
The StarFlex implant closes the defect, preventing venous blood from returning to the body without being oxygenated by the lungs.
Older heart disease patients with drug-eluting stents fare better when it comes to heart attacks and mortality rates than patients with bare metal stents, according to a study funded by the federal Health & Human Services dept.’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
A federal appeals court ruled that Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson each infringed cardiac stent patents held by the other company, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The outcome of the 10-year court battle is still murky, despite the ruling, which failed to determine “the question of who owes what to whom,” according to the journal.
A three-year trial comparing Abbott Laboratories‘ Xience V drug-eluting stent against its Taxus competitor from Boston Scientific Corp. showed that the Abbott device is much more effective three years after implantation.
The news, announced at an American College of Cardiology conference in Orlando, sent the Natick device goliath’s stock into a slight swoon. The Xience product is already outselling the Taxus, and the news promises to accelerate that trend.
The good news: Another credit agency raised Boston Scientific Corp.‘s rating. The bad news: The Natick-based medical devices giant is still rated as a junk bond.
March 16 capped off a rough week for Boston Scientific Corp. and its Taxus stent line.
The Natick-based device giant found out March 14 that it faces a class-action lawsuit over the 2004 recall of its Taxus stent.
Two days later, the same day the Natick-based device giant settled a patent infringement case filed by a Texas physician, it was slapped with another by a Hong Kong cardiovascular device maker.
Boston Scientific Corp. co-founders John Abele and Peter Nicholas unloaded millions of dollars worth of their stakes in the company in March alone.
It’s part of their effort to salvage the Natick-based medical device leviathan’s stock price, which fell from about $45 per share five years ago to less than $9, according to The Boston Globe.
Add to that the failure of its Taxus Express drug-eluting stent and the disastrous, $27 billion buyout Guidant Corp. (which added $10 billion in debt and thousands of safety recalls in 2006).
Boston Scientific Corp.’s iCross coronary imaging catheter hit the United States market March 19, two days after the company said two of its new drug coated stents should debut in Europe later this year — possibly earlier in non-EU countries.
The Natick medical device colossus said its iCross coronary imaging catheter, designed for use with its intravascular ultrasound iLab imaging system, is now available in the U.S.
